Rejuvenation

Question 1

What is the difference between learning and memory?

Answer 1

learning is acquiring knowledge, memory is the expression of that knowledge

Question 2

what are long term memory categories?

Answer 2

events, facts

Question 3

what are short term memory categories?

Answer 3

skills, perceptional representation, classical conditioning, habituation/sensitization

Question 4

what does the hippocampus do?

Answer 4

memory formation, spacial learning
stores memories, acts as an index

Question 5

What is the morris water maze experiement?

Answer 5

the mice were placed in a pool with a ledge on one side, and the more time they were placed, the less time it took for them to get to the ledge

Question 6

what is anterograde amnesia

Answer 6

lose short term memory
damage or removal of hippocampus
opposite of retrograde amnesia

Question 7

What did Eric Kandel do for the field?

Answer 7

discovered that the key to plasticity is the synapse
worked with slugs and rodents

Question 8

What did the aplysia experiments do? (what did they prove)

Answer 8

proved that sensitization was real and how it worked (less of a stimulus provides a strong reflex over time (LEARNING))
Habituation due to decreased neurotransmitter release (boy who cried wolf– LEARNING))

Question 9

What is a noxious stimulus? What does the body do in response?

Answer 9

something that can harm the body
the body automatically moves away from it without thinking (hand touching a stove)
sometimes can be induced (withdrawal reflex)

Question 10

What was the aplysia withdrawal reflex that was tested? Where did the plasticity happen?

Answer 10

poking the gills and they automatically retract
after many stimuli they react less because they are habituated
plasticity happened between sensory and motor neuron

Question 11

What was the aplysia sensitization experiment?

Answer 11

shocking it to cause gill withdrawal
stronger response over time (more of a fire in the synapse between the sensory and motor neurons)

Question 12

What is the synaptic strength of a neuron?

Answer 12

average amount of current or voltage excursion produced in the postsynaptic neuron by an action potential in the presynaptic neuron

Question 13

Why is synaptic plasticity important?

Answer 13

controls how effectively two neurons communicate with each other, changes over time

Question 14

What is LTP (long term potentiation of synaptic strength)

Answer 14

a process involving persistent strengthening of synapses that leads to a long-lasting increase in signal transmission between neurons

A persistent strengthening of synapses based on recent patterns of activity (neurons that fire together wire together)

Question 15

What happens after LTP has been strengthened? (what does it imply?)

Answer 15

learning has occurred

Question 16

Why do we think LTP is the cellular basis of learning and memory?

Answer 16

exhibits specificity and associative properties

Question 17

What is specificity (in ltp)

Answer 17

When LTP is induced by the stimulation of one synapse, it does not occur in other, inactive synapses that contact the same neuron

Question 18

What is associativity (in ltp)

Answer 18

if one pathway is weakly activated at the same time that a neighboring pathway onto the same cell is strongly activated, both synaptic pathways undergo LTP
(classical conditioning)

Question 19

What is the difference between short and long term learning (as a general rule of thumb)

Answer 19

Short term changes in neuronal plasticity require the modulation of pre-existing proteins

Long-term alterations in neuronal excitability require fundamental changes in the synapse