Lecture 2- Learning and Memory I Flashcards
What are the disorders involving deficits in learning and memory?
-autism, attention deficit disorder, down syndrome -depression, schizophrenia, addiction -alzheimer’s disease, dementia, Huntington’s disease
What did the patient experience when a) the somatosensory b) associated motor and c) auditory cortex were stimulated during a neurosurgery?
a) tingling in the left thumb b) protrusion of the tongue c) hears specific orchestral music
What area of the brain is responsible for face recognition?
-fusiform face area
What happened to patient H.M.?
-severe anterograde amnesia -bilateral resection of medial structures of the temporal lobe to treat severe epilepsy -profound impairment of recent memory in absence of other intellectual loss (IQ 112 post-surgery) -could not remember what he had for breakfast, find his way around a hospital or recognise anyone he had met since the surgery -MRI reveals medial temporal lobe lesion
Why couldn’t H.M. remember anything new?
-able to hold immediate impressions in his mind but as soon as his attention was diverted they were lost -could remember childhood -the transport from short term to long term memory no longer active due to absence of the hippocampi
What is the story with H.M. and the star test?
-proved unconscious (procedural) memory -did the test and improved over time despite not being able to recollect doing the task before
How do we classify memory?
- declarative (explicit): facts and events, hippocampus, medial temporal lobe;diencephalon
- nondeclarative (implicit)
a) skills and habits= striatum, motor cortex, cerebellum
b) priming= neocortex
c) basic associative learning i) emotional responses= amygdala ii) skeletal musculature= cerebellum
d) nonassociative learning= reflex pathways
What were the experimental results concerning the London cab drivers?
-structural MRI showed enlarged posterior hippocampi in London cabbies compared to non drivers -evidence that changes in hippocampal grey matter are acquired with experience
What are the three NMDA receptor subtypes?
- NR1
- NR2A
- NR2B
What happened to the mice that had the NMDA gene inactivated?
-control= inbred, don’t differ much genetically -mutant= inactivated gene for something, the NMDA receptor protein removed from hippocampus -wild= normal when platform dropped, wild knows it should be there, mutant doesn’t, no memory of it
What does the hippocampus do?
-stores memories and converts them from short to long term memories
What does recording neuron activity show?
- short term changes= fast
- long term changes= slow
PIC4How does NMDA change from childhood to adulthood?
-shift to N2RA subunit after development -at first increased N2RB when increased capacity for learning then shifts to N2RA
What happens in mice where the young version of NMDA is maintained (N2RB)?
-smart mice -the increased ability for learning remains
How is synaptic strength affected in mutant mice with NR2B?
-when NR2B then strong synaptic connection= more extended developmental form of learning
