PSYCH 462 Exam 3 - Chapter 12

Who pioneered the investigation of what we now call classical conditioning in which pairing two stimuli changes the response to one of them?

Ivan Pavlov

What are the two stimuli that are paired together?

the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the neural stimulus

In Pavlov's experiments with the dogs:
-pre-learning, (1) unconditioned stimulus = ____ and (2) unconditioned response = _________
(3) neural stimulus = ________
-post-learning, (4) conditioned stimulus = ________ and (5) conditioned response = _________
The order for goes as follows __ --> ___ --> ___ ; __ --> __

(1) food
(2) salivation
(3) apparatus
(4) apparatus
(5) salivation
CS --> UCS --> UCR ; CS --> CR

In _________ conditioning, a response (behavior) leads to a reinforcer or punishment

operant

A ______ increases the probability that a behavior will occur again while a ________ decreases the probability that the response will occur again

reinforcer, punishment

What is an example of a positive punishment?

adding chores when child doesn't do homework

Karl Lashley was searching for the ______ - the physical representation of what has been learned

engram

What did Lashley believe a possible example of an engram could be?

a connection between two brain areas

True or false: an engram is changes that happened in the neuronal level

true

Karl Lashley hypothesized that a knife cut somewhere in the brain could interrupt that connection and abolish the learned response. After many attempts, what were the results of his experiments?

he never made a cut that killed the learning; basically, he failed

However, Lashley did discover that a lesion impaired performance, and the deficit depended on?

the amount/volume of cerebral cortex damaged

Richard Thompson and colleagues used a simpler task than Lashley's and sought the engram of memory not in the cerebral cortex but in the ___________

cerebellum

Thompson set out to determine the _________ of learning

location

Imagine a sequence of brain areas from the sensory receptors to to the motor neurons controlling the muscles:
--(1) If we damage any one of these areas, learning will be _______, but we cannot be sure that learning occurred in the _____ area
(2) For example, if the learning occurs in area D, damage in A, B, or C will prevent learning by _______ the input to D
(3) Damage in E or F will prevent learning by blocking the ______ from D
(4) Thompson and colleagues reasoned as follows: Suppose the learning occurs in D. If so, then D has to be active at the time of the learning and so do all the areas _________ __ to D. However, learning should not require areas ___ and beyond. If area ___were temporarily blocked, nothing would relay information to the muscles, so we would see no response, but learning could occur nevertheless, and we could see evidence of it later

(1) impaired, damaged
(2) blocking
(3) output
(4) leading up, E, E,

Thompson's research identified one nucleus of the cerebellum, the ________ ________ ________, as essential for learning

lateral interpositus nucleus (LIP)

True or false: when investigators temporarily suppressed the LIP, the rabbit showed no responses during training; then, after the LIP recovered, they continued training, and at that point, the rabbit began to learn, but it learned at the same speed as animals that had received no previous training; evidently, while the LIP was suppressed, the training had no effect

true

True or false: when investigators suppressed activity in the red nucleus, the rabbits again showed no responses during training; however, as soon as the red nucleus had recovered, the rabbits immediately showed strong learned responses to the tone (in other words, suppressing the red nucleus temporarily prevented the response but did not prevent learning); evidently, learning did not require activity in the red nucleus or any area after it.

true

Donald Hebb distinguished between two types of memory that he called
(1) ______-_____ memory = memory of events that have just occurred
(2) ____- _____ memory = memory of events from times further back

(1) short-term
(2) long-term

Does short-term memory have a limited capacity while long-term memory does not?

yes

True or false: short-term memories fade quickly without rehearsal, while long-term memories persist

true

True or false: long-term memories can be stimulated with a cue/hint while short-term memories once forgotten are lost forever

true

What is the term for solidifying a short-term memory into a long-term memory, presumably by building new synapses or structural changes?

consolidation

Short-term memories can last awhile. For example, _________ significant memories form quickly. In fact, you remember not only the event itself, but those just before and after it. Psychologists call these experiences _______ memories

emotionally, flashbulb

The physiological explanation for flashbulb memories is that the highly emotional experiences arouse the _______ _______, which increases norepinephrine release throughout the cortex and ______ release in the hippocampus

locus coeruleus, dopamine

Emotional experiences also increase the secretion of epinephrine and cortisol that activate the _________ and ________

amygdala, hippocampus

To replace the concept of short-term memory, A. D. Baddeley and G. J. Hitch introduced the term _______ memory to refer to the way we store information while we are working with it

working

What is a common test of working memory, in which you respond to something that you saw or heard a short while ago?

delayed response task

What area of the brain do we see the delayed response task involved in?

dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

What is the term that describes memory loss?

amnesia

What is brain damage caused by prolonged thiamine deficiency?

Korsakoff's syndrome

A distinctive symptom of Korsakoff's syndrome is __________, in which patients fill in memory gaps with guesses

confabulation

What are confabulations usually about?

personal life

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

Alzheimer's disease

What is the term for the universal experience that older children and adults remember very little of what happened in their first few years of life?

infant amnesia

What assumption did Lashley make that later researchers rejected?
(1) Any convenient example of learning will reveal the mechanisms that apply to all learning
(2) Learning requires modification of the activity at synapses
(3) Short-term memory has to be gradually consolidated into long-term memory
(4) Learning is distributed over many brain area, but it depends mainly on the hippocampus

(1) Any convenient example of learning will reveal the mechanisms that apply to all learning

What was the original concept of consolidation?
(1) The maximum time that gamma bursts can continue
(2) The time necessary to synthesize proteins
(3) The time before adrenal hormones can reach the cortex
(4) The delay at a metabotropic synapse

(2) The time necessary to synthesize protein

How does the cortex store a working memory?
(1) Suppression of the production of new neurons in the hippocampus
(2) Occasional bursts of gamma oscillations
(3) Increased production of amyloid-B
(4) Increased release of norepinephrine, epinephrine and cortisol

(2) Occasional bursts of gamma oscillations

What type of memory do patients with Alzheimer's retain better than other types?
(1) Procedural memory better than memory of facts
(2) Memory of recent events better than memory of older events
(3) Memory of unemotional experiences better than memory of emotional experiences
(4) Working memory better than short-term memory

(1) Procedural memory better than memory of facts

Currently, what seems the most promising explanation for infant amnesia?
(1) Increased reliance on language as children grow older
(2) More new hippocampal neurons in infants than in older individuals
(3) Inability of the infant hippocampus to store a memory
(4) Lack of gamma oscillations in the infant cortex

(2) More new hippocampal neurons in infants than in older individuals

In 1953, Henry Molaison (HM), was suffering from epileptic seizures. A surgeon, William Scoville, in an attempt to get rid of the seizures, removed the ________ and nearby structures of the medial temporal cortex from both of HM's hemispheres

hippocampus

We now know that much of the hippocampus is active during the formation of ______ and later ________

memories, recall

After the surgery, HM's seizures stopped. His intellect and language abilities remained intact, and his personality remained the same except for emotional placidity. However, he suffered massive ________ amnesia as well as ________ amnesia

retrograde, anterograde

What is anterograde amnesia?

inability to form new memories after brain damage

What is retrograde amnesia?

loss of memory for events that occurred before the brain damage

True or false: once the hippocampus is removed, you can't create episodic memories and you have both anterograde and retrograde amnesia

true

Despite HM's huge deficits in forming long-term memories, his _______-____ memory or ________ memory remained intact, unless he was __________

short-term, working, distracted

Why did short-term memory and working memory remain intact in HM's case?

because the prefrontal cortex also plays a role in memory

HM formed a few new weak _________ memories - that is, memories of factual information

semantic

True or false: HM implicit memory remained intact as well as his procedural memories

true

HM had severe impairment of ________ memories, memories of personal events

episodic

How does episodic memory play into predicting the future?

since we use info from the past to predict the future, people with amnesia have difficulty at imagining the future since they don't remember their past

Nearly all patients with amnesia show better _______ than ______ memory

implicit, explicit

________ memory is deliberate recall of information that one recognizes as a memory, known as declarative memory. You can state the memory in words, draw a picture of it or otherwise demonstrate that you know you remember it

explicit

________ memory is an influence of experience on behavior, even if you do not recognize that influence. For example, HM became comfortable and familiar with certain people, although he could not remember their names or where he had met them.

implicit

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

procedural

While the hippocampus does play a role in long-term episodic memory, what do recent episodic memories generally include?

much contextual detail

True or false: the brain doesn't just pick a memory from an area in the brain, it rebuilds the memory

true

Several types of evidence demonstrate the importance of the hippocampus and nearby areas for _______ memory. Consider the radial maze with several arms and mice

spatial

The research into the hippocampus and its relationship to spatial learning began with the discovery of ______ cells, hippocampal neurons tuned to particular spatial locations, responding best when an animal is in a particular place and looking in a particular direction

place

Many of the place cells also function as ____ cells that respond at a particular point in a sequence of time

time

The hippocampal place cells receive much of their input from the nearby __________ cortex. When researchers recorded from cells here, they found that each cell became active at locations separated from one another in a _________ grid. The cells are therefore called _____ cells

entorhinal, hexagonal, grid

At a given level within the entorhinal cortex, different cells respond to different sets of ________, but always in a hexagon. At each deeper level, the area covered by a given cell ________ in size. Many of the cells at deeper levels respond to the animal's ______ of locomotion instead of its location or direction. The animal determines its location and direction from a _____________ of inputs from several populations of cells. When an animal moves to a different environment, all the cells reorder themselves to map out the new locations.

locations, doubles, speed, combination

True or false: the place cells and time cells of the hippocampus relate to the previous discussion of episodic memory in that any episodic memory refers to events that occurred in a particular place, with a particular sequence of events over time, and a loss of place cells and time cells disrupts many types of memory formation.

true

Gradually learning habits, or learning what probably will or will not happen under certain circumstances depends on parts of the basal ganglia, specially the ________ _________ and the _________, which are together known as the striatum

caudate nucleus, putamen

True or false: in the striatum, learning gradually happens over many trials, it is focused on habitual behavior, it generally requires immediate feedback and it is implicit learning

true

Why is it unsurprising that HM had intact procedural memory?
(1) Procedural memory can develop in a single trial
(2) Procedural memory depends on high-frequency gamma oscillations
(3) Procedural memory does not requires synaptic modifications
(4) Procedural memory depends on the striatum, not the hippocampus

(4) Procedural memory depends on the striatum, not the hippocampus

Someone with semantic dementia has lost which of the following?
(1) Ability to understand speech
(2) Factual knowledge
(3) Ability to find the way to something
(4) Face recognition

(2) Factual knowledge

Donald Hebb proposed a mechanism for learning by changing the _______

synapse

Hebb suggested that an axon that has successfully stimulated cell B in the past becomes even more successful in the future. In simpler words, cells that fire together, ____ together, and the cells are ______ together

wire, close

A _________ synapse is one that can increase its effectiveness as a result of simultaneous activity in the presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons. Such synapses are essential for many kinds of associative learning

Hebbian

What is true about a Hebbian synapse?
(1) It strengthens if its activity is associated with an action potential in the postsynaptic cell
(2) It can be either excitatory or inhibitory, depending on the activity of other nearby synapses
(3) It includes either an AMPA site or an NMDA site
(4) It can send messages between cells in either direction

(1) It strengthens if its activity is associated with an action potential in the postsynaptic cell

What is the popular invertebrate animal that is used for studies of the physiology of learning based on changes in synapses?

Aplysia

What does much of the research on Aplysia deal with?

the withdrawal response

________ is a decrease in response to a repeated stimulus that is accompanied by no change in other stimuli. Research shows that it depends on a change in the synapse between the _________ neuron and the ______ neuron

habituation, sensory, motor

The first evidence of learning depending on changes in synapses in humans came from studies of neurons in the rat hippocampus and the phenomenon is known as _______-______ ____________ (___)

long-term potentiation (LTP)

What is long-term potentiation (LTP)?

an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation, leaving some synapses potentiated (more responsive to new input of the same type) for minutes, days or weeks

LTP shows 3 properties that make it an attractive candidate for a cellular basis of learning and memory:
(1) ________ = only synapses onto a cell that have been highly active become strengthened
(2) ___________ = simultaneous stimulation by 2 or more axons produces LTP much more strongly than does repeated stimulation by a single axon
(3) __________ = pairing a weak input with a a strong input enhances later responses to a weak input

(1) specificity
(2) cooperativity
(3) associativity

What is meant by the "cooperativity" of LTP?
(1) LTP is greater if two inputs are active together
(2) LTP increases the response of many synapses, even those that were not stimulated
(3) Pairing two stimuli leads to both habituation and sensitization
(4) Pairing two stimuli increases the response to the stronger one

(1) LTP is greater if two inputs are active together

The opposite change of LTP, _______-______ ___________ (___), a prolonged decreases in response at a synapse, occurs for axons that have been less active than others

long-term depression (LTD)

You can think of LTD as a compensatory process meaning ?

as one synapse strengthens, another weakens; you don't use it, you lose it

True or false: memories are housed in coded variables in multiple neurons

true

LTP most readily occurs in the ?

hippocampus

In most cases, LTP depends on changes at ________ synapses

glutamate

What are the two types of excitatory glutamate receptors that we are interested in when it comes to LTP?

AMPA receptors and NMDA receptors

While AMPA and NMDA receptors are both ionotropic receptors, meaning that when they are stimulated, they open a channel to let ions enter the postsynaptic cell, AMPA is a typical receptors that opens ______ channels, while NMDA receptor's response to glutamate depends on __________. When the membrane is at resting potential, the NMDA receptors are blocked by __________ ions.

sodium, depolarization, magnesium

Suppose two axons are activated repeatedly, side by side on the same dendrite. So many sodium ions enter through the ____ channels that the dendrites becomes strongly depolarized. The depolarization displace the magnesium molecules, enabling the glutamate to open the _____ channel. At that point, both sodium and ________ enter through the NMDA channel.

AMPA, NMDA, calcium

True or false: the entry of calcium is key to producing LTP

true

When calcium enters through the _____ channel, it activates a protein called ______, which sets in motion a series of reactions leading to release of a protein called ____. This protein goes to the nucleus of the cell and regulates the expression of several genes. In some cases, the altered gene expression lasts for months of years, long enough to account for long-term memory

NMDA, CaMKII, CREB

Once NMDA fires, calcium begins to flow and it is extremely positive. That cues the cell to make more ?

synapses

The effects of CaMKII and CREB are magnified by ?

BDNF

The formation and maintenance of LTP depends on what 3 chemicals?

CaMKII, CREB and BDNF

Once LTP has been established, it no longer depends on _____ synapses

NMDA

What type of medication has been shown to aid in memory sometimes?

Ritalin

What excites NMDA receptors?
(1) The transmitter norepinephrine
(2) The transmitter NMDA
(3) The transmitter glutamate, but only if other nearby synapses are silent
(4) The transmitter glutamate, but only if the membrane is depolarized

(4) The transmitter glutamate, but only if the membrane is depolarized

During the formation of LTP, which ions enter at the NMDA receptor?

calcium and sodium

What does CaMKII do?

it releases a protein that alters the expression of several genes

What concept includes learning, memory, reasoning and problem solving?

intelligence

True or false: Charles Spearman (1904) reported that, as a rule, all measures of cognitive performance correlate positively with one another

true

Both brain size and brain-to-body ratio are unsatisfactory ways of estimating animal intelligence because, if humans consider themselves to be the most intelligent species, we are confronted with the fact that we have neither the largest brains nor the highest brain-to-body ratios. Therefore, ________ _______ ________ is a more promising correlate of intelligence.

total neuron number

Of the following, which correlates most strongly with intelligence?
(1) The ratio of excitatory to inhibitory synapses
(2) The ratio of neurons to glia cells
(3) The surface area of the cerebral cortex
(4) The strength of connections between the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum

(3) The surface area of the cerebral cortex