Lecture 6 - Cellular basis of learning & memory (II)

Question 1

What is hippocampus required for?

Answer 1

Coding space and time (spatial memory, place cells)
Memory consolidation
Damage causes anterograde amnesia

Question 2

What are place cells?

Answer 2

Neurons in the hippocampus that fire action potentials when an animal explores a familiar place

Question 3

What are grid cells?

Answer 3

Grid cells fire whenever the animal traverses the vertices of an equilateral triangular grid covering the environment
They guide the place cells to form a spatial map

Question 4

H.M.’s medial temporal lobe, containing his hippocampus was removed due to seizures. What were the major findings?

Answer 4

Memory could be impaired selectively without loss of cognitive functions
Memory function localised to the medial temporal lobes
Localisation of memory not completely clear as it could be due to the combined damage of the hippocampus and amygdala

Question 5

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 5

The inability to form new memories after onset of a disorder

The medial temporal lobe is critical for the initial formation/encoding of new memory but not the place where well-established long-term memories are stored

Question 6

What is retrograde amnesia?

Answer 6

The loss of memories formed before onset of amnesia

Question 7

How did H.M. perform on the mirror-tracing task over time?

Answer 7

His performance improved, as developing this perceptual skill requires the use of his basal ganglia.

Question 8

What part of memory is motor procedural memory part of?

Answer 8

Non-declarative memory

Question 9

What is non-declarative memory?
What does it include?

Answer 9

Performance informed by implicit knowledge

Perceptual memory
- priming

Procedural memory
- Operant / instrumental conditioning

Emotional memory
- conditioned fear response

Non-associative memory
- Habituation / sensitisation