Memory and cognition Flashcards
What is cognition?
highest order of brain function, relating to behaviour that deals with though processing and integrates all sensory information to make sense of a situation
What does learning and memory require?
motivation - neuronal plasticity
Association areas function
integrate information from multiple sources
Hippocampus function of learning and memory
forms memories
Cortex function of learning and memory
storage of memories
Thalamus function of learning and memory
searches and accesses memories
Emotional component of memories comes from which system?
limbic
What part of the limbic system has a link between emotion and ANS response?
hypothalamus
Reward areas
intense feeling of euphoria, pleasure and sexual arousal
Punishment areas
anger, terror, pain
What is the significance of reward and punishment areas?
gives a task SIGNIFICANCE - barely remember experience which is neither. drives every conscious thing we do.
What part of the brain picks which memories are stored?
limbic system
Describe a patient with bilateral hippocampal damage
motor skills intact eg play piano
immediate memory intact although cannot form new memories
What memories decay fastest?
visual
What memory are reverberating circuits associated with?
short term
Give an example of a task which would require short term memory
dialling a phone number
Immediate long term - what adaption occurs?
chemical adaption at presynaptic terminal
Long term memory - what adaption occurs?
structural changes in synaptic connections
In the reverberating circuit is each synapse inhibitory or excitatory?
excitatory
What does reverberation result in?
significant memory being consolidated into long term memory
If reverberation is disrupted by infection what can result?
amnesia
2 types of amnesia and their differences
anterograde - cannot form new memories
retrograde - cannot access more recent old memories
Anterograde amnesia description
inability to recall events after the injury and can be short lived or permanent
Retrograde amnesia description
cannot remember events leading up to injury although events long ago recall unaffected as deeply ingrained
Immediate long term memory - specific changes
increase calcium entry to presynaptic terminals increasing neurotransmitter release
Long term memory - 3 structural changes
increase in neurotransmitter vesicles
increase in presynaptic release sites
increase in number of presynaptic terminals
What is long term potentiation?
increased amplitude in graded membrane potential in post synaptic cell strengthens the synapse
What are the 2 main types of long term memory?
explicit and implicit
explicit memory - subtypes
abstract memory for remembering events (episodic)
words, rules, language (semantic)
explicit memory - part of brain
hippocampus
Implicit memory - part of brain and what it is
procedural/motor memory
repetition and muscle memory
cerebellum
What happens to new memories?
coded - stored in sensory and association areas of cortex and stored next to existing memories which are similar
Papez circuit
hippocampus -> mammillary bodies -> anterior thalamus -> cingulate gyrus
What parts of the brain do the reverberating circuits consolidate?
papaez circuit, frontal cortex and sensory and association areas
Where are memories stored in the cortex?
different areas eg auditory, visual
