Neuropsychology of Memory Flashcards
Amnesia
memory loss
Impact of Amnesia:
- intelligence is intact
- attention span intact
- personality intact
ability to take in new information is severely and usually permanently affected
“H.M could remember things from his childhood but had incomplete memories for a few months before the operation”
Why?
- were not concretely
encoded/”trodden” - susceptible to loss when head
injury, insult or in this case surgery
H.M’s phonological store and visual sketchpad unaffected but
was unable to create new memories
Amnesia is usually caused by damage to the
medial temporal lobe or anatomically connected regions
(hippocampus)
involved in the laying down of new episodic memories
Anterograde Amnesia:
insert figure
Anterograde Amnesia:
- after brain injury, new episodic
memories can not be formed - HM was severely impaired no
matter regardless of the sensory
modality through which info was
presented and the format of the
test
Procedural Memory:
- learning of motor skills is distinct
from explicit long term memory - involved the basal ganglia
- when a skill becomes automatic, it
can operate in the absence of
awareness
Amnesiacs can not learn new procedural skills.
True or False?
False
they can learn new skills
Evidence for independent procedural memory system:
- task was a pursuit-rotor task
- healthy controlsand patients with
Alzheimer’s showed normal
learning (implicit memory) - patients with huntington’s disease
were impaired
Anterograde Amnesia Flowchart:
insert flowchart
Episodic Memory:
- memories for events and
occurrences that are specific in
time and place - what where when
Semantic Memory:
- knowledge of facts, concepts,
word meanings etc - can be retrieved without
knowledge about where and when
the information was acquired
Declarative Memory Theory:
- all declarative memories (episodic
and semantic) depend on medial
temporal lobes for their
acquisition and short-term
retention
In anterograde amnesia, what type of memories are typically affected?
- episodic memory is poor and
generally grossly impaired - semantic memory poor but might
be able to form new memories
Can new semantic memories be formed despite amnesia?
Yes
hence semantic memories involved the hippocampus but also other regions of the brain
generally through incidental learning/ comparing different pictures
not supporting squire’s declarative memory theory
Retrograde Amnesia:
- loss of memories before the brain
injury - some degree of retrograde
amnesia is almost always present - the extent of retrograde amnesia
for episodic memories is highly
contested
What is declarative memory theory?
all declarative memories (episodic and semantic) depend on medial temporal lobes for their acquisition and short term
over time, declarative memories become consolidated to other brain regions
Standard Model of Consolidation:
insert diagram
Retrograde Amnesia: Types of Memory Affected:
- semantic memory learned long
ago is intact - evidence is preserved remote
episodic memory is mixed - episodic memory is mixed likely
Semantic Dementia:
- poor knowledge of meaning of
words or concepts - naming difficulties
- not confined to one modality;
deficits may include a difficulty in
recognising sounds
semantic knowledge is associated with lateral temporal cortex
knows what she has done but can not find the words to express herself
Confabulation:
- people with frontal lobe damage
- often know the knowledge
- people make up where they
learned the knowledge - family often get very angry as they
believe they are lying - caused by a breakdown in
memory control processes such as
monitoring whether retrieved
memories are relevant to now - not actual memory loss
