Memory and cognition

Question 1

What is cognition?

Answer 1

highest order of brain function, relating to behaviour that deals with though processing and integrates all sensory information to make sense of a situation

Question 2

What does learning and memory require?

Answer 2

motivation - neuronal plasticity

Question 3

Association areas function

Answer 3

integrate information from multiple sources

Question 4

Hippocampus function of learning and memory

Answer 4

forms memories

Question 5

Cortex function of learning and memory

Answer 5

storage of memories

Question 6

Thalamus function of learning and memory

Answer 6

searches and accesses memories

Question 7

Emotional component of memories comes from which system?

Answer 7

limbic

Question 8

What part of the limbic system has a link between emotion and ANS response?

Answer 8

hypothalamus

Question 9

Reward areas

Answer 9

intense feeling of euphoria, pleasure and sexual arousal

Question 10

Punishment areas

Answer 10

anger, terror, pain

Question 11

What is the significance of reward and punishment areas?

Answer 11

gives a task SIGNIFICANCE - barely remember experience which is neither. drives every conscious thing we do.

Question 12

What part of the brain picks which memories are stored?

Answer 12

limbic system

Question 13

Describe a patient with bilateral hippocampal damage

Answer 13

motor skills intact eg play piano

immediate memory intact although cannot form new memories

Question 14

What memories decay fastest?

Answer 14

visual

Question 15

What memory are reverberating circuits associated with?

Answer 15

short term

Question 16

Give an example of a task which would require short term memory

Answer 16

dialling a phone number

Question 17

Immediate long term - what adaption occurs?

Answer 17

chemical adaption at presynaptic terminal

Question 18

Long term memory - what adaption occurs?

Answer 18

structural changes in synaptic connections

Question 19

In the reverberating circuit is each synapse inhibitory or excitatory?

Answer 19

excitatory

Question 20

What does reverberation result in?

Answer 20

significant memory being consolidated into long term memory

Question 21

If reverberation is disrupted by infection what can result?

Answer 21

amnesia

Question 22

2 types of amnesia and their differences

Answer 22

anterograde - cannot form new memories

retrograde - cannot access more recent old memories

Question 23

Anterograde amnesia description

Answer 23

inability to recall events after the injury and can be short lived or permanent

Question 24

Retrograde amnesia description

Answer 24

cannot remember events leading up to injury although events long ago recall unaffected as deeply ingrained

Question 25

Immediate long term memory - specific changes

Answer 25

increase calcium entry to presynaptic terminals increasing neurotransmitter release

Question 26

Long term memory - 3 structural changes

Answer 26

increase in neurotransmitter vesicles
increase in presynaptic release sites
increase in number of presynaptic terminals

Question 27

What is long term potentiation?

Answer 27

increased amplitude in graded membrane potential in post synaptic cell strengthens the synapse

Question 28

What are the 2 main types of long term memory?

Answer 28

explicit and implicit

Question 29

explicit memory - subtypes

Answer 29

abstract memory for remembering events (episodic)

words, rules, language (semantic)

Question 30

explicit memory - part of brain

Answer 30

hippocampus

Question 31

Implicit memory - part of brain and what it is

Answer 31

procedural/motor memory
repetition and muscle memory
cerebellum

Question 32

What happens to new memories?

Answer 32

coded - stored in sensory and association areas of cortex and stored next to existing memories which are similar

Question 33

Papez circuit

Answer 33

hippocampus -> mammillary bodies -> anterior thalamus -> cingulate gyrus

Question 34

What parts of the brain do the reverberating circuits consolidate?

Answer 34

papaez circuit, frontal cortex and sensory and association areas

Question 35

Where are memories stored in the cortex?

Answer 35

different areas eg auditory, visual