Spatial cognition and memory

Question 1

who discovered place cells and how?

Answer 1

O’Keefe and Nadal 1978 - inserted electrodes into hippocampus

Question 2

what are place cells?

Answer 2

Lever 2002 - place cells contain directional specific firing
those firing together signal a specific location in a specific spatial content

Question 3

what forms episodic and semantic memories?

Answer 3

hippocampal formation

Question 4

who is patient HM

Answer 4

Scoville and Miller 1950 - damage to hippocampus meant that HM was unable to form new autobiographical memories

Question 5

who identified spatial cells in other place cells?

Answer 5

Taube 1990 - identified neurons which have direction specific firing = place cells and head direction cells

Question 6

how can you test that hippocampus is crucial for spatial memory?

Answer 6

Morris 1982 - created the morris water maze, and tested lesioned and control rats to locate a submerged platform in the maze
results showed that accuracy was associated to hippocampus

Question 7

hippocampal activity correlates to spatial memory - who studied this and using what technique?

Answer 7

Maguire 1998 PET
Hartley 2003 MRI
Cornwall 2008 MEG

Question 8

what did maguire 1998 do?

Answer 8

Ps had to navigate round a virtual environment
found that accuracy was correlated with hippocampal activation
clear predictions were obtained from MWM rat exp.

Question 9

what did Hartley 2003 do?

Answer 9

compared navigation based on a wayfinding task and route following task
results replicated Maguire’s
also found that increased activation showed less activity in caudate

Question 10

what did cornwall 2008 do?

Answer 10

looked at theta oscillations in the hippocampus
using a virtual human maze, MEG study carried out
found that theta power increases during hippocampal navigation activity

Question 11

what are theta oscillations and how are they recorded?

Answer 11

prominent brain waves in the hippocampus recorded by inserting electrodes into hippocampus

Question 12

what increases the volume of the hippocampus?

Answer 12

Woollett 2011 - learning to become a taxi driver was found to cause increased volume in hippocampus
hence ID observed from environmental influences

Question 13

what 3 factors underlie individual differences in performing episodic memory?

Answer 13

brain structure (volume)
inherited differences (BDNF gene)
differences in strategies

Question 14

what is episodic memory and how does it differ from semantic?

Answer 14

Tulving - episodic memory is from memorable events and structured by context similarities and differences
semantic memory is knowledge and facts based and structured by semantic similarities and differences

Question 15

is episodic memory hippocampus dependent and who studied this?

Answer 15

Vargha-Khadem 1997 - looked at 3 anterograde amnesia patients
using MRI revealed bilateral hippocampal pathology although all patients had normal speech/language
results showed that episodic and semantic memory is dissociable and only episodic is fully dependent on hippocampus

Question 16

what degenerates first in Alzheimer’s and what does this result in?

Answer 16

hippocampus therefore AD causes loss of episodic and semantic memory

Question 17

who studied episodic memory in old age and what happens?

Answer 17

Levine 2002 - it gets worse because hippocampal volume decreases

Question 18

who studied inherited differences in genes and what was the experiment?

Answer 18

Egan 2003 - BDNF polymorphism affects activity dependent secretion of BDNF, human memory and hippocampal function - consequence of a single gene on episodic memory

Question 19

what happens in mice if BDNF expression reduced?

Answer 19

impairs spatial memory in MWM

Question 20

who looked at the consequences of carrying the met polymorphism and what are they?

Answer 20

Hariri 2003 - less BDNF secretion, smaller hippocampus, less hippocampal activation for episodic memory but more for memory task not requiring hippocampus

Question 21

what are differences in strategies?

Answer 21

how people use different strategies to complete tasks eg. how does one remember their pin?

Question 22

who research differences in strategies?

Answer 22

Kirchoff 2006 - tested 4 strategies on Ps looking at pictures of random objects, strategies - verbal inspection and verbal elaboration

Question 23

what were Kirchoff’s 2006 results?

Answer 23

Ps brain activity in left prefrontal cortex correlates with verbal elaboration and same for left extrastriate cortex with verbal inspection

Question 24

who looked at individual differences in brain activations associated with episodic retrieval and how?

Answer 24

Miller 2002 - use neuroimaging technique and found that brain activity is distinct for individuals
this may be due to different cognitive strategies