UCirvine Ch13 Discussion – Memory and Learning – Description
Patient H.M.
Who was patient H.M.?
What was the reason for his surgery?
Describe the surgery.
Was it successful in addressing his condition?
Explain the negative repercussions of his surgery in regard to memory.
How was H.M.’s working memory assessed?
Describe the mirror-tracing task.
How was it relevant to the case study on H.M.?
Why was H.M. able to improve at mirror drawing?
Why did he never remember his prior attempts at mirror-drawing?
What did this experiment help us learn about types of memory and the associated anatomy? Include the following terms (IN BOLD) in your answer: declarative, nondeclarative, and procedural.
Summarize how the case study on H.M. added to body of knowledge that existed on learning and memory at that time? Your explanation should include the following terms (IN BOLD): anterograde, retrograde, short-term, long-term, hippocampus, amygdala, cortex, and temporal.
Patient N.A.
Who was patient N.A.?
Describe his accident and the brain injury it caused.
How did N.A.’s memory change as a result?
What were the similarities and differences between his brain injury and H.M.’s.?
How were researchers able to pinpoint that the hippocampus is required to form new memories?
Remember that H.M. had more than just his hippocampus removed. How did they use N.A.’s case study in combination with H.M.’s case study to further elucidate the brain regions/structures associated with different types of memory?
Korsakoff’s syndrome
What is Korsakoff’s syndrome?
What causes it?
How did studies on people with this syndrome reinforce what we learned from N.A.?
Patient K.C.
Who was patient K.C.?
Describe his accident and the brain injury it caused?
Summarize K.C.’s story, and what it taught us about memory.
Include the following terms (IN BOLD) in your summary: declarative, episodic, semantic, frontoparietal, parieto-occipital cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and anterograde.
How did this information, combined with what was we learned from H.M. provide another piece of the learning and memory puzzle?
Classical conditioning
Describe classical conditioning while explaining Figure 13.10.
For example: “In figure 13.10, food represents _____. It triggers ____. In the second portion of Figure 13.10…. In the third part of Figure 13.10….”
Include the terms (IN BOLD) US, UR, CS, and CR in your explanation.
Share your own example of a personal experience with classical conditioning.
Figure 13.20 (The Neural Circuit for Conditioning the Eye-Blink Reflex)
Explain Figure 13.20
What region does this circuit involve?
How does the circuit illustrate the physiology behind classical conditioning
Habituation
What is habituation?
What is associative learning?
How are habituation and non-associative learning related?
Use (and reference) Figures 13.18, and 13.19 to explain how Aplysia helped Eric Kandel and associates learn about synaptic plasticity, and habituation and its underlying circuit.
How does the circuitry/physiology in Aplysia change during:
Short-term habituation?
Long-term habituation?
Be specific about which part of the circuitry contributes to the change.
Instrumental conditioning
What is instrumental/operant conditioning?
What is the major distinction between operant and classical conditioning?
What is associative learning?
How are the two related?
Explain figure 13.11.
Share your own example of a personal experience with instrumental/operant conditioning.
Reinforcement
What is reinforcement?
What is positive reinforcement? Provide an original example.
What is negative reinforcement? Provide an original example.
Punishment
What is punishment?
What is positive punishment? Provide an original example.
What is negative punishment ? Provide an original example.
Why/how are reinforcement and punishment integral to instrumental/operant conditioning?
Types of memory
Short-term memory
Long-term memory
How long does long-term memory last?
Define how long-term memories require encoding, consolidation, and retrieval.
How reliable is long-term memory? Give an example from lecture that supports your answer.
How can it be influenced by leading questions? Give an original example.
What are flashbulb memories?
How accurate are they?
Summarize the example provided by your textbook.
Declarative memory
Define declarative memory.
What type of questions does it answer?
Provide a personal example of a declarative memory.
Which brain structures are important for declarative memory?
Describe the experiment used to identify these structures.
Which structures were ruled out, based on the same experiment?
Describe the delayed non-matching-to-sample task.
How is it related to declarative memory?
Nondeclarative memory
Define nondeclarative memory.
What type of questions does it answer?
Provide a personal example of a nondeclarative memory.
Recreate Figure 13.13 (Subtypes of Declarative and Nondeclarative Memory), and incorporate the following into your chart:
How long LTM and STM last
Definitions and examples from your own life for each of the following:
declarative
nondeclarative
episodic
semantic
procedural
priming
classical conditioning
non-associative learning
spatial memory
Draw or a copy/paste a small picture showing the brain regions involved in each type of memory.
Explain Figure 13.14 (The Stages of Memory).
Describe the process illustrated by the figure.
How are your sensory buffer and short-term memory related?
How are short-term and long-term memory related?
Define the following terms and
Encoding
Consolidation
Retrieval
Explain how these terms are related to long-term memory.
Explain how these terms are related to learning.
How/when is long-term memory subject to distortion?
Neuroplasticity
What is neuroplasticity?
Explain Figure 13.15
What ways could learning alter synaptic structure and/or function does the figure illustrate?
As you explain the different ways in which these changes can occur, reference the corresponding portion (A, B, C, D) of Figure 13.15 that illustrates your explanation.
Varied experiences and learning cause the brain to change and grow
Figure 13.16 – Experimental Environments to Test the Effects of Enrichment on Learning and Brain Measures
In your own words:
State the hypothesis.
Describe the experimental design.
What are the independent variables?
What are the dependent variables (what did they measure)?
Figure 13.17 – Measurement of Dendritic Branching
What does Figure 13.17A illustrate?
What does Figure 13.17B illustrate?
Long-term potentiation (LTP)
What is LTP?
Define the following terms:
Hebbian synapse
Tetanus (NOTE: Google will most likely give you the wrong definition.)
Retrograde transmitter
What evidence exists that LTP is likely a mechanism of memory-formation?
Describe how LTP is artificially achieved and measured in laboratory experiments conducted on the hippocampus.
Reference Figure 13.21A in your explanation.
In your answer, be sure to include the following terms (IN BOLD): tetanus, presynaptic, postsynaptic, high-frequency burst, EPSP, glutamate and hippocampus in your answer.
Explain what Figure 13.23 illustrates.
AMPA and NMDA receptors
What happens to AMPA receptors and NMDA receptors during LTP?
Include the following terms (IN BOLD) in your explanation: dentate gyrus, glutamate, NMDA receptors, AMPA receptors, Ca++, Mg+, presynaptic, postsynaptic, enzymes, retrograde transmitter, LTP, active synapse, conductance.
What are place cells? Cognitive maps? Explain Figure 13.12.
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