Memory and Amnesia Flashcards
Define learning.
A process by means of which organisms acquire new knowledge or skills.
Define memory.
The maintenance of learning across time.
What are the necessary processes for information to be learned and remembered?
Input = Acquisition (perception, encoding) Hold = Storage (consolidation, maintenance) Output = Retrieval (performance; recall, recognition)
What causes forgetting?
Temporal decay or interference from the learning of other information. However, most input is immediately forgotten and has little effect on behaviour.
What parts of HM’s brain were removed?
Hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, uncus, amygdala, and the anterior temporal cortex.
What two categories is long-term memory split into?
Declarative (explicit) and non-declarative (implicit)
What two categories is declarative memory split into?
Episodic - personal episodes in time and space (hippocampus, neocortex, medial temporal lobe)
Semantic - facts, meanings, concepts, knowledge (lateral and anterior temporal cortex, prefrontal cortex)
What four categories is non-declarative memory split into?
Procedural (striatum, cerebellum, motor cortex)
Priming and perceptual learning (neocortex)
Simple classical conditioning (amygdala and cerebellum)
Non-associative (reflex pathways)
Patients with conduction aphasia - why do they have disorder of repetition?
Selective impairment of auditory verbal short term memory
What does the visuospatial sketchpad store?
Visual and spatial information
What does the phonological loop store?
A temporary store for heard information
What connects the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop store in the 1974 model?
Central executive
In the 2000 revised model, how are visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop connected? What are the additional components?
Visuospatial sketchpad Buffer Phonological loop
^^^ ^^^ ^^^
Visual semantics Language
Sketchpad, buffer and loop go to central executive.
What is the frontal lobe associated with?
What about the temporal lobe?
Higher cognitive functions
Memory
The hippocampus is involved in spatial memory. What is the evidence for this?
Taxi drivers have increased hippocampus volume.
In AD, there is atrophy of the hippocampus.
Name a few types of amnesia. (6)
Anterograde Retrograde Dissociative Transient global Traumatic Wernike-Korsakoff's psychosis
What is anterograde amnesia?
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.
What is retrograde amnesia?
Unable to recall events that occurred before the onset of amnesia.
What is dissociative amnesia?
Blocking out of critical personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature (psychogenic).
What causes amnesia?
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)
What does mental exercise facilitate a greater development of?
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.
When axon of cell A excites cell B and repeatedly takes part in firing it, what takes place?
Some growth process or metabolic change takes place in one or both cells so that A’s efficiency of firing B is increased.
What receptors are involved in long term potentiation?
NMDA
Blocking long-term potentiation by NMDA receptor antagonists causes…
Selective impairment of learning
What three types of glutamate receptors are there?
NMDA
AMPA
Kainate
At the synapse, what are the three activity dependent changes?
Synapse number
Release probability
AMPA receptors (number and phosphorylation state)
