Exam 4: Learning & Memory

Tuesday, April 10, 2012 4:49 PM

1. Before we even get to learning and memory, we're bombarded with sensory information. There has to be an encoding of external information before you can learn and remember things. a. Sensory buffer: too bombarded information, or if you simply decide to ignore it b. We lose a lot of information, even before encoding. c. Information passes sensory buffers-->encode-->short term storage d. From short term storage, move to working memory (a couple of seconds where you can hold that information in your head, reciting someone's phone number). e. Retrieve information directly from here and use f. You can also take the information and put it away into long term storage g. Once you're done with the information thats in your short term memory can be used and then lost, or put back into short term/working h. The process of this short term/working memory going into long term storage is called consolidation. i. Even when information is in short term memory, a lot of information is loss. Even when information is successfully put into long term storage, it can still be lost, or you can have a hard time retrieving it back. i. Engram--hypothetical change in neural tissue postulated in order to account for persistence of memory i. The thing in the brain which is memory ii. We have a lot of memory and we are capable of learning a lot of things and putting it away. iii. Your brain is able to encode this information and hold it as memory while it is performing basic functions (like breathing, blinking your eyes, walking, moving your arms, writing, typing). iv. In the past, people were actually looking for this engram, a particular area. j. In search of the engram--memory can be held in many different forms and they're distributed all over your brain i. What are the processes which underlie the formation of memories? What's happening in the brain that allows us to have memory? ii. What processes determine the strength of learning and memory? Some memory and learning are stronger, stronger associational memory. Emotional stuff tends to be much stronger and those emotional memories tend to stay with us a lot longer than non emotional. iii. Where are the changes underlying learning and memory located? There are several brain areas important for learning and memory iv. Basic tenet: learning is (causes/results from) brain changes (plasticity) 2. Brain is permanently changed by learning. 3. H.M a. Had uncontrollable seizures that were located in the medial temporal cortex. Surgeons bilaterally removed the medial part of temporal cortex and the hippocampus. As a result, he had permanent anterograde amnesia, couldn't remember anything from the moment of surgery i. A little bit of retrograde amnesia, things that happened a couple of years/leading up to the surgery, couldn't remember those very well 1) Chronic enduring anterograde amnesia (no new long term memories) a) Permanent anterograde amnesia resulting from removal of medial temporal cortex and hippocampus 2) Limited retrograde amnesia (interference, loss of, previously formed memories) ii. Rats--learning episode-->remove hippocampus-->can't learn anything new from the time of the surgery, has a hard time remembering what happened before the surgery. 1) Train rats--> do surgery after-->remember iii. Hippocampus is important for consolidation into long term memory iv. The first stop is hippocampus (explicit memory), but after a while, the information gets moved out into cortex, and is completely out of cortex. v. Testing memory 1) Verbal--faced with letters --> delay-->another screen where you pick which one you saw. Longer delay-->harder to remember. a) Non verbal-->shape-->delay-->match b) Control can hold this information up to 50 seconds, no issues. At 60 seconds, a little bit of error c) H.M.--> no delay--> was doing a lot worse than control groups 2) Following a path: acquire the exact route you need to take a) Normal subject, error free performance after 20 trials b) H.M., wasn't able to do the task even with many trials 3) Mirror drawing task a) There's a piece of paper with a shape, line is very thick, your job is to trace a line inside of the shape, look at mirror image, not paper itself. b) H.M. gets better over many trials

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b) H.M. gets better over many trials i) Normal people know that they're been practicing ii) H.M. doesn't remember the previous trials iii) (??) Does this mean that the information is encoded somewhere in the brain (not in hypothalamus or medial temporal cortex) and is there, but H.M. doesn't know this, but can retrieve it? 4) H.M. a) Impaired-- explicit memory. Declarative. "memory with record," "knowing that." b) Intact--implicit memory. Procedural learning "knowing how to do it," "knowing how to ride a bicycle." 4. Memory a. Declarative (explicit) i. Semantic memory: deals with factual information ii. Episodic memory: particular events that are important for you b. Non declarative (procedural, implicit) i. Procedural memory: skills and habits ii. Classical conditioning 1) Skeletal musculature 2) Emotional response iii. Non associative 1) Habituation 2) Sensitization 5. Hippocampus-->conversion of short term (explicit) memories into long term (explicit) memories 6. Testing hippocampal function in spatial information processing--Morris Water maze a. Throw rats into swimming pool, there is a platform just under water surface, rats or mice cannot see it. b. Have to acquire spatial information from around the water maze to remember where the platform location is. Platform location is fixed in one spot, and rats or mouse is dropped in diff part of the water maze. Have to use spatial cues to escape from the water c. After you train the animals for a long time-->find platform pretty fast d. Remove the platform to really test their memory, if they have intact memory as where the platform used to be, they will constantly search that place. e. Lesions to hippocampus and train the animals to do this--> they are a lot worse than the control animals, they get a little better, some of that is purely knowing the platform is there. Develop diff strategies i. They know that the platform is there, start to circle around from the outside and gradually go in. 7. Mouse video a. Morris Water maze b. The mouse was particularly slow. 8. Cells inside of the hippocampus are encoding spatial information a. Hippocampal place cells. Biggest population is in hippocampus b. Color represents the firing of a particular cell, coding from 4 different cells, each represented by a color. c. Location specific- intense activity only when a rat is in a certain position in the environment d. Place cell fields develop within minutes in a new environment and are stable for weeks to months (maybe longer) i. Same firing pattern from cells independent of time e. The same cell can have stable representations of different places within different environments. i. The relationship among the cells can completely change in a new environment, can establish a new place field that is completely independent of the previous environment ii. Place cell has particular preference to the left side--> if you rotate it 180 degrees, doesn't matter, follows the area. It depends on the relationship, spatial configuration of environment. iii. These four cells (red, green, yellow, blue)--> cells that make this particular relationship, in a triangle shaped environment, establish different types of place fields in that environment 9. Does the hippocampus form a cognitive map of space? a. Some believe that the primary function of the hippocampus is to form cognitive maps of space b. Others think that spatial processing by the hippocampus is just one component of a larger function: forming relationships between individual items in memory 10. Experiment a. Particular location of the cup comes in order, event 1,2,3,4 b. Between red and blue, which one came first, and they have to go to the one that came first in order to retrieve treat. Have to identify red as the one that occurred before blue. Not only spatial location, but the sequence and relationship between the two events c. Control--80% can identify red/blue d. Lesions to hippocampus--perform at chance levels e. Train relationships i. Premise pairs, A>B>C>D>E, ii. Test for sensitivity: B vs D iii. Control animals about 90% of the time can tell you that B > D iv. Hippocampal lesions, animals perform at chance levels f. Argument that hippocampal cells are important for relationships among objects as well as spatial information
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f. Argument that hippocampal cells are important for relationships among objects as well as spatial information

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