Learning, Memory, and Plasticity

What are the executive functions?

initiation - the ability to start or begin something

abstraction - considering something novel, as a solution to a problem

cognitive flexibility - the ability to consider alternatives

motor planning

use of language

ability to “work out” response to action or spoken behavior prior to doing so

ability to suppress socially unacceptable behaviors

Semantic Memory

EXPLICIT

generalized knowledge of the world that does not involve memory of a specific memory - twelve items make a dozen

studying is an example

Procedural memory

IMPLICIT

under semantic memory

how to do something - you never forget how to ride a bike

Source Memory

EXPLICIT

knowing how you learned the information

Autobiographical memory

IMPLICIT

under source memory

field - you remember the event without yourself in it - more recent memories

observed - your own image is placed into the remembered event - more distant memory

Episodic memory

IMPLICIT

under source memory

the memory of an episode in your life - what you had for dinner, last night, birth of child, etc.

Stages of memory

encoding - immediate or sensory memory (thalamus)

consolidation - short term memory (fornix and hippocampus)

retrieval - long term memory (frontal lobes)

What are the CNS changes as a result of injury?

genetic responses

axonal sprouting - activity dependent!

dendritic branching

myelination

diaschisis effects - various functions

neurogenesis??