Memory and Amnesia

Question 1

Define learning.

Answer 1

A process by means of which organisms acquire new knowledge or skills.

Question 2

Define memory.

Answer 2

The maintenance of learning across time.

Question 3

What are the necessary processes for information to be learned and remembered?

Answer 3

Input = Acquisition (perception, encoding)
Hold = Storage (consolidation, maintenance)
Output = Retrieval (performance; recall, recognition)

Question 4

What causes forgetting?

Answer 4

Temporal decay or interference from the learning of other information. However, most input is immediately forgotten and has little effect on behaviour.

Question 5

What parts of HM’s brain were removed?

Answer 5

Hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, uncus, amygdala, and the anterior temporal cortex.

Question 6

What two categories is long-term memory split into?

Answer 6

Declarative (explicit) and non-declarative (implicit)

Question 7

What two categories is declarative memory split into?

Answer 7

Episodic - personal episodes in time and space (hippocampus, neocortex, medial temporal lobe)

Semantic - facts, meanings, concepts, knowledge (lateral and anterior temporal cortex, prefrontal cortex)

Question 8

What four categories is non-declarative memory split into?

Answer 8

Procedural (striatum, cerebellum, motor cortex)
Priming and perceptual learning (neocortex)
Simple classical conditioning (amygdala and cerebellum)
Non-associative (reflex pathways)

Question 9

Patients with conduction aphasia - why do they have disorder of repetition?

Answer 9

Selective impairment of auditory verbal short term memory

Question 10

What does the visuospatial sketchpad store?

Answer 10

Visual and spatial information

Question 11

What does the phonological loop store?

Answer 11

A temporary store for heard information

Question 12

What connects the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop store in the 1974 model?

Answer 12

Central executive

Question 13

In the 2000 revised model, how are visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop connected? What are the additional components?

Answer 13

Visuospatial sketchpad Buffer Phonological loop
^^^ ^^^ ^^^
Visual semantics Language

Sketchpad, buffer and loop go to central executive.

Question 14

What is the frontal lobe associated with?

What about the temporal lobe?

Answer 14

Higher cognitive functions

Memory

Question 15

The hippocampus is involved in spatial memory. What is the evidence for this?

Answer 15

Taxi drivers have increased hippocampus volume.

In AD, there is atrophy of the hippocampus.

Question 16

Name a few types of amnesia. (6)

Answer 16

Anterograde
Retrograde
Dissociative
Transient global
Traumatic
Wernike-Korsakoff's psychosis

Question 17

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 17

New events are not transferred to long-term memory. It is a defcit in learning subsequent to the onset of the disorder. Henry M had profound anterograde amnesia.

Question 18

What is retrograde amnesia?

Answer 18

Unable to recall events that occurred before the onset of amnesia.

Question 19

What is dissociative amnesia?

Answer 19

Blocking out of critical personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature (psychogenic).

Question 20

What causes amnesia?

Answer 20

Brain injury (physical trauma, drug and alcohol abuse, or reduced blood flow)
Infections (e.g. encephalitis and herpes)
Anoxia, ECT, epilepsy (affects short term memory)
Neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Alzheimer’s)

Question 21

What does mental exercise facilitate a greater development of?

Answer 21

Protoplasmic apparatus and of the nervous collaterals in the part of the brain in use.
In this way, pre-existing connections between groups of cells could be reinforced by multiplication of the terminal branches of protoplasmic appendix and nervous collaterals. But the preexisting connections could also be reinforced by the formation of new collaterals and protoplasmic expansions.

Question 22

When axon of cell A excites cell B and repeatedly takes part in firing it, what takes place?

Answer 22

Some growth process or metabolic change takes place in one or both cells so that A’s efficiency of firing B is increased.

Question 23

What receptors are involved in long term potentiation?

Answer 23

NMDA

Question 24

Blocking long-term potentiation by NMDA receptor antagonists causes…

Answer 24

Selective impairment of learning

Question 25

What three types of glutamate receptors are there?

Answer 25

NMDA
AMPA
Kainate

Question 26

At the synapse, what are the three activity dependent changes?

Answer 26

Synapse number
Release probability
AMPA receptors (number and phosphorylation state)