Transcript Memory Systems - The Ramirez Group

The Brain’s Multiple Memory Systems
Today’s Forecast
1) Beginning
a: Studying memory in animals
b: Human lesion studies
2) Middle
a: Student presentations
3) End
a: Memento and The Bourne Movies
How reliable are your memories?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuQ6l
U5Tq2k
• Things to never ever (seriously NEVER PLEASE) forget after
this course #forscience, number 1:
Recalling a memory is a reconstructive process not a
perfect tape-recorded version of the past
W. W. Norton
Memory bends the arrow of time
• Episodic memory – recollecting events with spatial (where),
temporal (when), and informational (what) dimensions
(Eichenbaum et al., 2000)
Memory bends the arrow of time
• Procedural memory – learning how to perform different
actions and skills, often referred to as “habit learning” or
“motor memory”
(Eichenbaum et al., 2000)
Memory bends the arrow of time at Tufts too
The neural cartographer
~5-8% of patients reported vivid recall of memories, recent and distant,
and sometimes even hallucinations after temporal lobe stimulation
(Penfield, W., The Cerebral Cortex of Man, 1950)
The distributed nature of memories
(Eichenbaum et al., 2000 & 2007)
The hippocampus
The tiniest of cues can
elicit the rich recall of
past events—the sights,
sounds, smells, flavors,
and textures.
The hippocampus
receives input from
every sensory area
“Place cells” are thought
to represent a map of
the space around us
The hippocampus
receives input from
every sensory area
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4sjY
odVHh4
The human side of hippocampus lesions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmz
U47i2xgw
• Clive has both anterograde (can’t form new
memories) and retrograde (can’t recall old
memories) amnesia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1tkr
5K8d-c
Larry Squire on Memory
What could Clive still do?
• Clive can still play the piano, but cannot remember his
own identity
• He can still use a fork and knives and feed himself
• He can still walk upright
• Anything else?
Hollywood and Hippocampus lesions:
Memento
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDkU
TXDNxao
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=
player_detailpage&v=Pj5laLK4itI#t=29
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgn2l0
S8GI4
What can Leonard do?
What kind of amnesia is this?
If memories are our identities,
what do you think its unreliability
says about us as people?
The amygdala
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9
AStzt21ZdE
What was the finding?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A
EFQ0SxB6yo
The amygdala
• Often called
Kluver-Bucy Syndrome
The striatum
Uncoordinated, jerky body
movements become more
apparent, along with a decline in
mental abilities
http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=KleHA0fv0Eg
Place vs. Response; Hippocampus vs. Striatum
Hippocampus vs. Striatum vs. Amygdala
Ctrl |HPC | Str | Amg
Ctrl |HPC | Str | Amg
Ctrl |HPC | Str | Amg
Hollywood and Hippocampus lesions:
Jason Bourne
What can Bourne do?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ETrui
dd5lQ
What kind of amnesia is this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owax
FAC6rzk
What areas could be affected?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLt7lX
DCHQ0
Summary
Group Project
Bourne vs. Leonard – similarities and differences?
Clive vs. Hollywood – similarities and differences?
If you were the director of the movie, what would you change about how
amnesia was portrayed?
One of the most accurate depictions of amnesia in Hollywood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tESffh
Ws8l0
Group quiz
We are in the south arm of a building. To get to the men’s bathroom from
here, we have to go outside and head west. To the east is the women’s
bathroom.
Test day:
Our usual entrance is closed and we all start in the building from the North.
If all the men start from the north, what happens (in terms of strategy used to
find the bathroom) if:
1) After a few learning trials of finding the men’s bathroom, their HPC is
damaged? What if the striatum is damaged?
2) After hundreds of trials of finding the men’s bathroom, the Striatum
is damaged? What if the hippocampus is damaged?
3) Amygdala damage in general?
Name that brain area!