---memory consolidation---

Question 1

hippocampus

Answer 1

• key area of brain for LTM
• Removed in patient H.M.
• Destroyed in Clive Wearing

Question 2

medial temporal lobe

Answer 2

• key area of brain for LTM
• The STM and LTM capacities intact for Patient H.M. (and others)
• The MTL thought to perform some role – but this role is not fully understood

Question 3

neocortex

Answer 3

• key area of the brain for LTM
• Higher brain functions (i.e. perception, emotion, cognition)
• Consolidated memories (not reliant upon the hippocampus) argued to be located in the neocortex

Question 4

retrograde amnesia

Answer 4

The temporal gradient of retrograde amnesia and the link to hippocampus damage led to theories about how memories might be consolidated.

Question 5

consolidation

Answer 5

• Is the process in the brain that makes the memory for an event enduring.
• It refers to the process of information being transferred from one region of the brain to another and gradual re-organisation of brain regions to support memory.
• Maybe recent memories (before incident) are less consolidated.

as time passes, what we have learned and experienced (new memories) can be gradually re-organised within the brain.

Question 6

temporally graded retrograde amnesia

Answer 6

is often examined to better understand memory consolidation.

Question 7

hippocampal consolidation

Answer 7

• Initial encoding of new information into the hippocampus.
• Rapid process

The hippocampus acts as a temporary memory and also then facilitates communication between different sites in the cortex to enable a cortical trace to be established that supports the memory.

The interaction between the hippocampus and (neo)cortical regions is therefore crucial in supporting the formation of memories.

Question 8

systems consolidation

Answer 8

• Transferring information from the hippocampus to other brain regions for long term storage.
• This process takes much more time!

Question 9

• Alternate view: Nadal & Moscovitch (1997, 1998) – Multiple Trace Theory.

Answer 9

• Consolidation is important but so is RETRIEVAL.
• Consolidation processes create multiple traces of a memory in the brain.
• More memory traces are made (when activated via memory retreival) rather than the trace being more established over time
• Damage to the hippocampus removes some of these traces, and as newer memories have fewer traces, this creates the temporal gradient.