Memory and Sleep Flashcards
With regards to memory, this brain structure plays an important role in the consolidation of long-term declarative memories – i.e., the transfer of declarative memories from short-term (working) memory to long-term memory.
Hippocampus
With regards to memory, these brain areas are essential for procedural memories and other implicit memories (memories that operate on an unconscious, automatic level). Patients with damage to these areas have trouble learning new skills and performing previously learned skills.
Basal Ganglia, Cerebellum, and Supplementary Motor Area
With regards to memory, this brains structure is responsible for attaching emotions to memories has been demonstrated by several studies.
Amygdala
With regards to memory, this brain structure is essential for the working memory aspect of short-term memory. It’s also important for prospective memory, with lesions adversely affecting event-based prospective memory more than time-based prospective memory.
Prefrontal cortex
Damage to these brain areas can cause anterograde and retrograde amnesia.
Thalamus and mammilary bodies
This concept was first observed in glutamate receptors in the hippocampus but was subsequently observed in other areas of the brain including the amygdala and entorhinal cortex. It occurs in a neuron as the result of rapid and/or high-frequency stimulation and is believed to play an essential role in learning and memory formation.
Lont-term potentiation
This stage of sleep is a transitional stage between wakefulness and sleep. During this stage, low frequency, high amplitude alpha waves (which are characteristic of a drowsy state) are replaced by low frequency, low amplitude theta waves.
Stage 1
During this stage of sleep, theta waves continue but are interrupted by sleep spindles (sudden bursts of moderately fast waves) and K-complexes (large slow waves).
Stage 2
This stage of sleep begins after a person has been asleep for about 20 minutes and is characterized by low frequency, high amplitude delta waves.
Stage 3
During this stage of sleep, delta waves continue during but are of higher amplitude. This and the previous stage are also referred to as slow-wave sleep and deep sleep
Stage 4
This sleep stage begins after a person has been asleep for 80 to 90 minutes, and its EEG pattern is similar to the Stage 1 pattern. This type of sleep is also referred to as paradoxical sleep because it’s characterized by an active brain and physiological arousal while the body’s major muscle groups are nearly paralyzed and the person is very difficult to arouse. Most dreams occur during this stage and are more vivid, bizarre, and detailed than those that occur during other stages.
REM sleep
Although these people do not require less sleep than others, they have more trouble falling asleep, spend less time in deep sleep (especially Stage 4 sleep), experience more evenly distributed REM sleep throughout the night, wake up more often during the night, and experience an advanced sleep phase, which is also known as circadian phase advance and involves going to sleep earlier in the evening and waking up earlier.
Older adults
