Learning, Memory, and Memory Loss & | The Hippocampus and the Striatum

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

pairing two stimuli changes the response to one of them

CONDITIONED STIMULUS (CS)

which initially elicits no response of note

UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS (UCS)

which automatically elicits the unconditioned response (UCR)

CONDITIONED RESPONSE (CR)

After some pairings of the CS and the UCS (perhaps just one or two, perhaps many), the individual begins making a new, learned response to the CS

INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING

(also known as operant conditioning), a response leads to a reinforcer or punishment

REINFORCER

any event that increases the future probability of the response.

PUNISHMENT

an event that suppresses the frequency of the response.

ENGRAM

the physical representation of what has been learned; A connection between two brain areas would be a possible example

EQUIPOTENTIALITY

all parts of the cortex contribute equally to complex behaviors such as learning, and any part of the cortex can substitute for any other.

MASS ACTION

the cortex works as a whole, and more cortex is better

LATERAL INTERPOSITUS NUCLEUS (LIP)

one nucleus of the cerebellum; as essential for learning

SHORT-TERM MEMORY

events that have just occurred

LONG-TERM MEMORY

events from further back.

CONSOLIDATE

strengthen; Hebb further proposed that storing something in short-term memory for a sufficient period of time made it possible for the brain to ___ it into long-term memory

FLASHBULB MEMORIES

you remember not only the event itself, but those just before and after it; as if a mental flashbulb illuminated everything for a moment.

SYNAPTIC TAG-AND-CAPTURE

Your brain tags a weak new memory for later stabilization if a similar, more important event soon follows it; Now you form a long-term memory of not only the accident but also the earlier slip.

WORKING MEMORY

to refer to the way we store information while we are working with it.

DELAYED RESPONSE TASK

A common test of working memory; in which you respond to something that you saw or heard a short while ago.

GAMMA OSCILLATIONS

responsive to the colors and locations

AMNESIA

memory loss

KORSAKOFF'S SYNDROME

brain damage caused by prolonged thiamine deficiency; also known as Wernicke-Korsakoff's Syndrome

THIAMINE (VITAMINE B1)

metabolize glucose, its primary fuel.

SEVERE THIAMINE DEFICIENCY

common among people with severe alcoholism who go for weeks at a time on a diet of nothing but alcoholic beverages, lacking in vitamins.

PROLONGED THIAMINE DEFICIENCY

leads to a loss or shrinkage of neurons throughout the brain, especially in the dorsomedial thalamus, the main source of input to the prefrontal cortex.

CONFABULATION

A distinctive symptom of Korsakoff's syndrome; in which patients fill in memory gaps with guesses.

ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

One of the most common causes of memory loss, especially in old age

DOWN SYNDROME

a condition generally linked to cognitive impairments; have three copies of chromosome 21 rather than the usual two

AMYLOID-β

The genes controlling early-onset Alzheimer's disease cause a protein called ___ to accumulate inside and outside neurons and spread from cell to cell

PLAQUES

The damaged axons and dendrites cluster into structures called ___; damage the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and other areas

TAU PROTEIN

An alternative hypothesis relates to ___ in the intracellular support structure of axons.

TANGLES

structures formed from degeneration within neurons

INFANT AMNESIA

(or early childhood amnesia) is not a disorder like Korsakoff's syndrome or Alzheimer's disease.

HIPPOCAMPUS

an area known to be critical for certain types of memory.

HENRY MOLAISON

known in most research reports as H. M., was suffering about 10 minor epileptic seizures per day and a major seizure about once a week, despite trying every available antiepileptic drug.

WILLIAM SCOVILLE

A surgeon; had experimented with various forms of lobotomy for mental illness, was familiar with two cases in which removal of much of the medial temporal lobe had relieved epilepsy.

ANTEROGRADE AMNESIA

inability to form memories for events that happened after brain damage

RETROGRADE AMNESIA

loss of memory for events that occurred before the brain damage

SEMANTIC MEMORIES

memories of factual information

EPISODIC MEMORIES

memories of personal events.

EXPLICIT MEMORY

deliberate recall of information that one recognizes as a memory; also known as declarative memory.

IMPLICIT MEMORY

an influence of experience on behavior, even if you do not recognize that influence.

PROCEDURAL MEMORY

the development of motor skills and habits, is a special kind of implicit memory.

LARRY SQUIRE

proposed that the hippocampus is critical for declarative memory, especially episodic memory.

DELAYED MATCHING-TO-SAMPLE TASK

an animal sees an object (the sample) and after a delay, gets a choice between two objects, from which it must choose the one that matches the sample.

DELAYED NONMATCHING-TO-SAMPLE TASK

the procedure is the same except that the animal must choose the object that is different from the sample

RADIAL MAZE

with several arms—typically eight—some or all of which have a bit of food at the end

MORRIS WATER MAZE

a rat swims through murky water to find a rest platform that is just under the surface

PLACE CELLS

hippocampal neurons tuned to particular spatial locations, responding best when an animal is in a particular place and looking in a particular direction

TIME CELLS

respond at a particular point in a sequence of time.

GRID CELLS

Each cell became active at locations separated from one another in a hexagonal grid; The cells are therefore called ___

STRIATUM

Learning of this type depends on parts of the basal ganglia, specifically the caudate nucleus and the putamen, which are together known as the ___

SEMANTIC DEMENTIA

People with damage in the anterior temporal cortex; a loss of semantic memory.