Plasticity in the motor system

Question 1

It it possible to function normally without half of your brain?

Answer 1

Yes, if you’re born without

Question 2

What are the two types of learning and memory, and how do they differ?

Answer 2

Declarative: facts and events
Non-declarative: skills, habits, skeletal musculature and emotional response

Question 3

What brain regions are involved in declarative memory?

Answer 3

Medial temporal lobe and diencephalon

Question 4

What brain regions are involved in non-declaratibe memory?

Answer 4

Skills and habits (aka procedural memory): striatum
Skeletal musculature: cerebellum
Emotional response: amygdala

Question 5

True or false: we learn through surprise.

Answer 5

True

Question 6

What are the stages of skill acquisition, and which regions are involved?

Answer 6

1: cognitive phase - what do I have to do? (prefrontal cortex), 2: associative phase - motor adaption (cerebellum, BG, SMA, PMC, parietal cortex), 3: automatic phase - only little conscious involvement necessary (primary motor cortex, cerebellum, spinal cord)

Question 7

True or false: our brain shrinks if we don’t use it.

Answer 7

True

Question 8

What kind of therapy can be used for stroke patients?

Answer 8

Contraint-induced movement therapy: contraining the working side to force the patient to use the impaired side

Question 9

How are reward feed-back involved in learning?

Answer 9

Important for learning, to needs to be correlated with improved task facillitation

Question 10

How do humans differ from other animals in regards to reward facilitated learning?

Answer 10

We can cognitively postpone the reward and still learn