Week 4 Flashcards
Stages of Memory
- Encoding
- Consolidation and Storage
- Retrieval
- Reconsolidation
True or False: Some behaviours are modified by the outcomes they produce
True
Learning to drive
- You had to learn many coordinate many complex behaviours
- each of these behaviours was learned because they produced an important outcome
- initially, driving a car was very demanding and required full concentration
- however, with repetition, driving became effortless, and required far fewer cognitive resources
- some of you have experienced driving for long stretches completely unaware that you are driving
Psychologists use this term when referring to the study of how behaviour is modified by the outcome it produces
Instrumental learning/instrumental behaviour
What does instrumental learning/behaviour recognizes
The term recognizes that our behaviours can be viewed as instruments that can change or modify our environments
Ex. When you turn the ignition key, the engine starts
In an operant chamber…
Rodents get rewarded for doing a task
When driving,
Your rewards are having the car do what you want it to do
Formation of a Memory Trace…
Begins with a Behavioural Experience when a behavioural experience activates a set of weekly connected neurons
The cellular-molecular processes activated in these neurons strengthen their synaptic connections (LTP), which results in?
Thereby creating a neural representation of the behaviour experience, called a memory trace
Engram
Memory Trace
NMDA Receptors and Memory Formation: Pharmacological Approach
Given the critical contribution NMDA receptors make in
the initiation of processes that strengthen synapses
(LTP), one would expect that these receptors are also
important for the initiation of memories for behavioral
experience
Richard Morris
The first to ask if NMDA receptors are critical to memory formation
The classic Morris experiment
Morris used a pharmacological approach
A. A cannula was implanted into the ventricles of the rat’s brain and attached to a time-release pellet that contained the NMDA receptor antagonist APV
B. Rats were trained on the place-learning version of the water-escape task
C. Rats infused with APV could not sustain LTP in the dendate gyrus
D. Rats infused with the APV were impaired in learning the location of the hidden platform
E. During the probe trial, control rats selectively searched the quadrant that contained the platform during trainings, but rats infused with APV did not
What does the classic Morris Experiment show?
Shows that NMDA receptors necessary for LTP and hippocampal-dependent spatial memory
NMDA receptors are composed of ____subunits
4
- GluN1
- GluN2
- GluN1 - GluN2A
- GluN1 - GluN2B
All functional NMDA receptors contain
GluN1 subunits
