Sept.

30, 2010 The Biology of Memory 1920s: Karl Lashley's unsuccessful search for a single engram (the physical trace of memory in the brain) Rates in a maze: more brain tissue removed = worse memory Location of brain damage didn't seem to matter 1949: Donald Hebb engram is located in assemblies of neurons Neurons that fire together, wire together Long-Term Potentiation (LTP): strengthening of connections among neurons due to repetitive stimulation. Neurons in the hippocampus, amygdala, and cortex show a long-term enhanced response (potentiation) following electrical stimulation The more that cells communicate, the stronger and faster the connections between the cells become Has to do with actual physical changes in the neuron Neural basis of memory? Hippocampus Memory Consolidation Amygdala Emotional memory Stress hormones impact this area Retrograde Amnesia loss of past memories before onset of amnesia. Anterograde Amnesia inability to form new memories since onset of amnesia. H.M. - famous neuropsychology patient Hippocampus removed Could not form new memories Short-term memory intact

Memory and Aging Senility is not inevitable Individuals vary in the amount of everyday forgetfulness they display as they age. But there are small, consistent reductions in brain volume with normal aging. Alzheimer's disease 13% of people over 65 years old, 42% over 85 Dementia overall cognitive decline, including severe memory and language loss (different from Alzheimer's)

 Brain pathology Plaques and tangles Cell death early = hippocampus later = cortex and others Being physically active reduces the risk of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease Correlation, not necessarily causation Various drugs to treat Alzheimer's Block brakdown of acetylcholine reduce agitatino, restlessness and hallucinations Infantile Amnesia We are unable to recall personal experiences that took place before about 3 to 5 years of age. Why? Some theories: Hippocampus is not yet developed, so we can't retain new explicit memories Infants have little or no sense of self.

Learning Learning Relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience Why is learning important? Survival is the name of the game for all living things Nature provides organisms with certain inherited skills Reflexes simple reactions e.g. knee-jerk response, sucking response in babies Fixed Action Pattern series of behaviors performed in an orderly sequence e.g. birds heading south as days get shorter Three assumptions of learning theories: 1. Experience shapes behavior 2. Learning is adaptive 3. Our experiments can uncover the laws of learning. How do we learn? Association between events that occur close in time or space Aristotle, Locke Learning relies on one's ability to form new associations and ignore old ones that are no longer relevant Habituation repeated or prolonged exposure to a stimulus results in a gradual reduction in responding Simplest form of learning Useful because Allows us to grow accustomed to negative stimuli that do not demand an immediate response. Might be bad when

 It leads to a lack of concern for a threat that we should actually worry about Classical Conditioning When a neutral stimulus evokes a response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally evokes a response Ivan Pavlov Pavlov was a Russian scientist who discovered the phenomenon of classical conditioning wanted to study effect of saliva in dogs Saliva release when dog eats something Pavlov surgically implanted tubes in dogs to redirect saliva from salivary glands Pavlov started to notice that they salivated without any food Somehow the dogs were anticipating the food to come by presence of researcher Began to test findings using bells Unconditioned Stimulus (US) Stimulus that naturally evokes a response without previous conditioning Used to condition a neutral stimulus to produce a similar response Unconditioned Response (UR) Unlearned response that reliably and naturally occurs in the presence of an unconditioned stimulus Conditioned Stimulus (CS) Neutral stimulus that gains the ability to evoke a response by repeatedly pairing it with the US (e.g. Pavlov paired a bell with meat) Conditioned Response (CR) Same response as UR, after conditioning Learned response to the CS that occurs due to repeated pairings with US Single trial learning Food aversions Conditioned Emotional Response (CER) John B Watson was one of the first psychologists to argue that human behavior is a collection of conditioned responses Conditioned Little Albert to be afraid of stuffed animal by using gong. Phobias classical conditioning also offers a way to get rid of phobias Mary Cover Jones (1924) successfully treated 3-year-old Peter, who had a phobia of rabbits, by slowly introducing a rabbit paired with candies. Fetishes Fetishism: experiencing sexual attraction to nonliving things. How conditioned responses emerge and fade away Acquisition Extinction Spontaneous Recovery

Acquisition Acquisition the initial learning stage in classical conditioning in which the CS and the US are pairecd can be tracked by observing the learning curve Extinction gradual weakening of a conditioned response CS is presented without the US CS-CR association not erased Spontaneous Recovery after a rest period, an extinguished CR (salivation) spontaneously recovers, but if the CS (tone) persists alone, association will lessen.

Classical Conditioning Temporal relations in classical conditioning There are a variety of orders that you could use to pair the CS and US Forward Pairing CS before US, best for conditioning Simultaneous Pairing CS and US at same time Backward Pairing US before CS, doesn't work very well The temporal relationship between CS and US is crucial to acquisition When addicts overdose... More often than not, addicts OD in a place other than where they usually shoot up, because body prepares at the place where they usually take the drug (It becomes a CS) Stimulus Generalization CR is observed even if the CS is slightly different from the one used during acquisition Little Albert became afraid of not only white rats but also all fluffy stuffed toys Stimulus Discrimination occurs when an organism that has learned a response to a specific stimulus does not respond in the same way to new stimuli that are similar Neural elements of classical conditioning Amygdala emotional conditioning Evolutionary elements of classical conditioning Conditioning is adaptive e.g. Food aversion takes place rapidly, over long delays, and to smell (in addition to taste) Biological peparedness A propensity for learning particular kinds of associations over others

Instrumental and Operant Conditioning Voluntary behavior REVIEW: Classical conditioning involves responsive or reflexive behaviors Thorndike's Law of Effect

 Behavior that leads to satisfying state of affairs is more likely to be repeated Thorndike's Puzzle Box Thorndike put cats into box from which they must figure out how to escape Thorndike measured escape time Instrumental Learning can be seen by the decrease in time to escape the box as a function of number of trials B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) Like Thorndike, Skinner was interested in how consequences of behavior affect learning Operant Conditioning Skinner: Organisms tend to repeat those responses that are followed by favorable consequences, or reinforcement Operant Conditioning Reinforcement: INCREASES probability that a behavior will occur again Punishment: DECREASES probability that a behavior will occur again Positive: Something is added Negative: Something is taken away Positive Reinforcement Something is ADDED to make behavior more likely to occur again Mom picks you up when you cry Get a good grade when you study Primary Reinforcer Innately reinforce behavior without prior learning e.g. food and water Secondary Reinforcer A neutral stimulus becomes reinforcing by being paired with a primary reinforcer e.g. money, token economies, clicker Negative reinforcement Behavior results in the REMOVAL of an aversive stimulus, which makes the behavior more likely to occur again Escape Learning tendency to repeat behavior that decreases or ends some aversive stimulation (like taking an aspirin) Avoidance Learning tendency to repeat a response that prevents a potentially aversive event from occurring Positive punishment ADD an aversive stimulus to decrease the probability of behavior occurring again Negative punishment REMOVE a reward to decrease the probability of a behavior occurring again Difficulties with punishment Which operant behavior is being punished? Learner may not know Learner may learn to fear the punisher (via classical conditioning), rather than eliminate the

behavior (via operant conditioning) May not eliminate existing rewards for a behavior Punitive aggression may lead to future aggression (e.g. abused children become abusive parents)