learning, amnesia

learning

How experience changes the brain

Controlled Processes

conscious, and intentional information processing

automatic processes

unconscious, effortless, and habitual

memory

Deals with how these changes are stored the brain

Autobiographical Memory

A person's memory for personal experiences and facts about their life, forming a coherent narrative of their past

Encoding

input of information in the brain

Storage

maintaining information in the brain (short/long term memory)

Retrieval

accessing information from the brain

Amnesia

Pathological loss of memory

Henry Gustav Molaison

suffered an average of on generalized seizure each week and many partial seizures each day despite massive doses of anticonvulsant medication

Bilateral Medial Temporal Lobectomy

The removal of the medial portions of both temporal lobes, including most of the hippocampus, amygdala, and adjacent cortex

lobectomy

An operation which a lobe, or a major part of one is removed from the brain

lobotomy

An operation in which a lobe, or a major part of one, is separated from the rest of the brain by a large cut but is not removed

Trephination

A surgical procedure where a hole is made in the skull by the removal of circular piece of bone

Retrograde Amnesia

Backward-acting; inability to recall past memories

Anterograde Amnesia

Forward-acting; inability to form new memories

Digital Span + 1 Test 

A verbal memory test where a person must recall increasingly longer sequences of digits.
Normal short-term memory should reach 10 blocks.

Block-Tapping Memory-Span Test

A test for global amnesia, where a person taps blocks in a sequence
Normal short-term memory should reach 12 blocks.

Global Amnesia

amnesia for information presented in all sensory modalities

Mirror-Drawing Test

Assesses motor learning by asking a person to trace a shape in a mirror.

First indication that H.M.s anterograde amnesia did not involve all long-term memories came from the results of 

1. Rotary-Pursuit Test 

Tests motor skill learning by having a person track a rotating target with a stylus.

H.M. learned and retained this task, although he had no conscious recollection of the learning trials

Incomplete-Pictures Test

A test of implicit memory using fragmented images that become more complete over trials

Pavlovian Conditioning 

Tone was sounded just before a puff of air was administered to his eye; these trials were repeated until the tone alone elicited an eye blink

Explicit Memories

• Conscious long-term memories

implicit Memories

• Long-term memories that are demonstrated by improved test performance without conscious awareness (to assess: repetition priming test)

MEDIAL TEMPORAL LOBE AMNESIA

Difficulty in forming explicit long-term memories while retaining the ability to form implicit long-term memories of the same experience

episodic memory

people with medial temporal lobe amnesia have particular difficulty with

AMNESIA OF KORSAKOFF’S SYNDROME

• is a disorder of memory that is common in people who have consumed large amounts of alcohol 

AMNESIA OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

More general than those associate with medial temporal lobe damage, medial diencephalic damage, or Korsakoff's syndrome

posttraumatic amnesia

Amnesia following a nonpenetrating blow to the head is called

Memory consolidation

• is defined as a time dependent process by which recent learned experiences are transformed into long-term memory, presumably by structural and chemical changes in the nervous system (e.g., the strengthening of synaptic connections between neurons)

Electroconvulsive shock

• is an intense, brief, diffuse, seizure-inducing current that is administered to the brain through large electrodes attached to the scalp