Memory 2: Animal models of memory

Question 1

what is the delayed non- matching to sample task?

Answer 1

1. the monkey has to move object A to get food
2. delay
3. monkey presented with object A and B
4. monkey must remember object A and move B for food

Question 2

What does the delayed non matching to sample task measure

Answer 2

Tests object recognition memory, explicit long term memory

Question 3

What happens to the monkeys performance on the delayed non matching to samples test if their medial temporal lobe is lesioned?

Answer 3

after a delay of 8 seconds there is no difference.

after a delay of 15 seconds monkeys who have had their medial temporal lobe lesioned perform much worse.

Question 4

What happens if you lesion the hippocampus alone in the DNMTS

Answer 4

In monkeys you get similar results when you lesion to the hippocampus as you do for the whole temporal lobe

Question 5

what is the problem for using monkeys when researching the hippocampus ?

Answer 5

Due to their location of the hippocampus it is difficult to lesion it without damaging parts of the overlying rhinal cortex/

Question 6

what can be used instead of monkeys?

Answer 6

rats - their hippocampus can be removed by aspiration.

Question 7

what is the delayed non matching to sample task called in rats

Answer 7

the mumby box

Question 8

what happened to the rats who had their hippocampus removed in the mumby box

Answer 8

Their performance was not impaired.

- rhinal cortex lesions alone produce the deficitys

Question 9

what did Mumby et al., (1996) suggest about patient RB ( Who supposedly only had damage to a small part of the hippocampus)

Answer 9

he found that when ischemia was induced in rats with their hippocampus their performance on the mumby box was impaired
however in rats who did not have a hippocampus ischemia did not induce an impairment.

Question 10

what were Mumby’s conclusions about Ischemia

Answer 10

Ischemia makes CA1 region of the hippocampus get over excited and kills other brain regions which are connected - the rhinal cortex

Question 11

the hippocampus

Answer 11

a brain structure important for spatial memory

Question 12

Maguire (2000)

Answer 12

London taxi drivers have enlarged hippocampus.

Question 13

what is the morris water maze

Answer 13

a widely used test of spatial memory, in which rats must learn to swim to a raised platform hidden beneath murkey water

Question 14

what are place cells

Answer 14

neurons which only respond when an animal is in a particular place in a testing environment

Question 15

what is the radial arm maze

Answer 15

a test of rats spatial memory in which the same arms are bated on each trial and the rat must learn to only visit the bated arms.