LEC 11: MEMORY

Question 1

What is memory?

Answer 1

• Connecting 2 stimuli (ex: classic conditioning Pavlov)
• Processing involved in retaining, retrieving, and using info abt stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills are the original info is no longer present.

Question 2

How are diff kinds of memory distinguished?

Answer 2

By how long info is retained

Question 3

What are the three kinds of memory?

Answer 3

sensory, short term (working memory), long term

Question 4

Who is Henry Molaison?

Answer 4

• Patient who lost long-term memory after surgery for epilepsy after the medial temporal lobe was removed
• anterograde amnesia

Question 5

anterograde amnesia

Answer 5

inability to form new memories

Question 6

retrograde amnesia

Answer 6

• an inability to retrieve info from one’s past
  (except for some temporally-graded retrograde amnesia)

Question 7

temporally graded amnesia

Answer 7

• info acquired in the distant past (remote memory) is spared relative to more recent memory
• for ex: 50 yo patient with recent amnesia from head trauma might maintain normal memories of his life until he was abt 40, but might have memory issues affecting yrs 41-50, w worsening memory closer to time of amnesia -causing injury at 50
• thus thee extent of amnesia differs (ex: is graded) over time

Question 8

HM had no change in

Answer 8

• IQ or language abt
• indicates impairment is specific to memory but no cognition generally

Question 9

Could HM learn new things

Answer 9

YES!
- skill learning, visual & perceptual skills thru exposure or repetition

Question 10

Mirror-drawing task

Answer 10

• follow the outline of an obj where all visual guidance is through a mirror
• HM was able to build this skill even though he does not remember does the skill previously

Question 11

Word-stem completion task

Answer 11

• task in which participants are asked to fill in the blanks in list of word stems (ex: MOT__) to produce first word that comes to mind;
• in a priming experiment, participants are more likely to produce particular word (ex: MOTEL) if they have been exposed to that word previously
  even amnesics like HM

Question 12

Consolidation

Answer 12

• the process by which memories become stable in the brain
• heavily reliant on MTL

Question 13

Working Memory

Answer 13

ability to hold limited amount of info active and manipulate it
- limited in capacity
- short term

Question 14

What was HM’s working memory like?

Answer 14

Normal range

Question 15

Korsikoff’s Disease

Answer 15

Cortical damage of alcoholism, delete/damages long term declarative memories

Question 16

Strokes: Ischemic

Answer 16

• a blood clot cuts off the blood supply to the brain
• can damage hippocampus and impair LTM performance

Question 17

The neurobiology of memory (7 structures)

Answer 17

• Hippocampus
• Parahippocampus
• Entorhinal cortex
• Perihinal cortex
• Dentate gyrus
• Subiculum
• Amygdala

Question 18

Where do the brain regions converge in the hippocampus

Answer 18

Entorhinal cortex: important for integration and learning

Question 19

Neurons that fire tighter…

Answer 19

wire together!

Question 20

Two types of glutamate receptors

Answer 20

AMPA: has excitatory function –> makes postsynaptic cells more likely to fire

NMDA: has mg ion that only opens when post-synaptic neuron is already depolarized

Question 21

NMDA receptor activation

Answer 21

• lets calcium ions into cell

triggers:
- short term: produce AMPA receptors in synapse –> more opportunities to out sm excitatory
- in the long term: create whole new synaptic terminals

Question 22

NMDA is sensitive to

Answer 22

• coincidence: a mechanism is sensitive to 2 things happening at the same time

Question 23

After learning, you develop more

Answer 23

• AMPA receptors
• making postysynaptic neuron more likely to fire

Question 24

where is working memory supported in the brain

Answer 24

• dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) impairs performance on memory tasks involving short delay

Question 25

function of prefrontal cortex in working memory

Answer 25

coordinates access to representations in posterior cortex needed in service of task goals such as coordinating access to representation (prefrontal cortex guides access to the info that may be stored somewhere else in brain)

Question 26

how does prefrontal cortex work in working memory

Answer 26

- neural oscillations

Question 27

neural oscillations

Answer 27

BURSTS of oscillatory activity in the gamma band