Transcript Chapter 14
Chapter 14
The Biology of Learning and Memory
Learning and Memory Definition
Learning
• A long term change in behavior as a function
of experiences.
Memory
• The capacity to retain and
retrieve past experiences.
Types of Learning
Habituation
• A decrease in response following repeated exposure
to a non-threatening stimulus.
Sensitization
• An increase in reactivity to a stimulus following
exposure to an intense event.
Classical (Pavlovian)Conditioning
• Occurs through associations between an
environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring
stimulus.
Operant Conditioning
• Learning that occurs through rewards and
punishments for behavior.
Types of Learning:
Pavlovian Conditioning
Learning in which a neutral stimulus is paired
with a stimulus that elicits a reflex response
until the neutral stimulus elicits the reflex
response by itself.
• Unconditioned stimulus (US) - A stimulus that
involuntarily elicits a reflexive response.
• Unconditioned response (UR) - A reflexive reaction to
an unconditioned stimulus.
• Conditioned stimulus (CS) - An initially neutral
stimulus that eventually elicits a conditioned response
after pairing with a US.
• Conditioned response (CR) - A learned reaction to a
CS.
Classical Conditioning
Types of Learning:
Operant Conditioning
Learning how to behave to obtain
reinforcement
Reinforcers - events or activities that increase the
frequency of the behavior that precedes that event or
activity.
Punishers - events or activities that decrease the
frequency of the behavior that precedes them.
Contingency -The specified relationship between a
behavior and its reinforcement or punishment.
Operant Conditioning
Models of Memory Storage and
Retrieval: Atkinson-Shiffrin model
An experience is sequentially stored in the sensory
register, and the short-term store, and the longterm store.
Models of Memory Storage and
Retrieval: Baddeley’s Rehearsal Systems
approach
An alternative to Atkinson-Shiffrin in which
Baddeley argued that memories go directly from
the sensory register to long-term storage.
Models of Memory Storage and
Retrieval: Craik and Lockhart
Craik and Lockhart - have a theory that
memories differ in the extent to which they have
been processed.
Types of Memories
Types of Memories
Declarative Memory
Memory whose formation does depend on
the hippocampal formation
Memory that can be verbally expressed
• Episodic memory
• Semantic memory
• Spatial memory
Slow-wave sleep facilitates consolidation of
declarative memories
Role of the Hippocampus
Input from motor and sensory association
cortexes and from subcortical regions such as
basal ganglia and amygdala
Through efferent connections with these regions
modifies the memories being consolidated there,
linking them together
A gradual process controlled by the hippocampus
transforms memories into long term storage in
the frontal cortex
Before process completes, hippocampus is
necessary for retrieval
Procedural Memory
Memory whose formation does not depend on
the hippocampal formation
Collective term for stimulus-response,
perceptual, and motor memory
Non-declarative memories control behaviors
Learning to drive, type
REM sleep facilitates retention
of non-declarative memories
Ian Waterman
Perceptual Learning
Learning to recognize stimuli occurs when
synaptic changes take place in the appropriate
regions of the sensory cortex that establish
new neural circuits
Learning to recognize sensory stimuli
• Primary visual cortex
Ventral stream – object recognition
Dorsal stream – object location
Other sensory information activate similar
areas of the association cortices
Perceptual Short-term memory
Activates the circuits and continues after the
stimuli disappears
Successfully remembering short-term is a two
step process
• Filter out irrelevant information
• Maintain relevant information
Also in prefrontal cortex
• Manipulate and organize
• Strategies for retrieval
Delayed matching-to-sample task
• Faces – fusiform face area – face blindness
• Places – parahippocampal place area
The Anatomy of Learning and
Memory: Procedural Memory
Procedural or nondeclarative memory involves the
neocortex and neostriatum.
Basal ganglia structures needed for
procedural learning
Classical conditioning
of reflexes depends
on the cerebellum.
(Budson & Price, 2009)
The Memory Consolidation Process:
Hebb’s Cell Assemblies
Cell assembly - A circuit of neurons that become
active at the same time; serves as the site of
permanent memory.
Reverberatory activity - Continued reactivation of
a neural circuit following an experience.
• Reverberatory activity is followed by physiological
changes that produce a relatively permanent record of
the event.
Phase sequence - interconnected cell assemblies
all activated at the same time in order to control
complex processes.
Structural Changes and Storing
Experiences
Experience enhances Ca2+ ion entry into the hippocampus (Lynch, 1986).
• Exposing more glutamate receptors to stimulation from other neurons,
making the postsynaptic neuron more sensitive.
• This may eventually cause changes in the terminal button and Lynch believes
this may be the biological basis of learning and memory.
Importance of the Hippocampus
• Damage results in memory
deficits
• Case of R.B.
• hippocampal damage
produced profound
anterograde amnesia
• Case of H.M.
• memories acquired before surgery were retained
suggesting that the hippocampus is involved in the
storage of declarative memory but is not the site of
storage.
• Some researchers have found episodic encoding in the
left frontal areas and episodic retrieval in the right frontal
regions.
PBS Nova – Aug 2009
Clive Wearing
Long Term Potentiation
A long term increase in the excitability of a neuron to
a particular stimulus due to the repeated highfrequency activity of that stimulus
A long-lasting strengthening of synapses between
nerve cells.
Long-term memories are thought to be based on LTP
Without LTP, learning some skills might be difficult or
impossible.
Characteristics of LTP
A brief, sensitizing stimulus is sufficient to produce LTP;
demonstrates that hippocampal neurons can change
synaptic responsivity following a single event.
LTP-changed synaptic responsivity is confined to a specific
neural pathway.
LTP can be produced by either a single stimulus or by the
convergence of stimuli that individually would not
produce LTP.
LTP can last for days or weeks, which suggests that it is
not just a temporary change in synaptic responsivity.
Long-Term Potentiation in the
Hippocampus
Long-term potentiation
is an increase in the
amplitude and duration
of EPSPs in response to
the test stimulus.
Three pathways involved
in LTP
• Perforant fiber pathway
• Mossy fiber pathway
• Schaffer collateral fiber
pathway
LTP and the NMDA Receptor
In the mossy fiber pathway, glutamate binds to
both the NMDA and non-NMDA receptors.
LTP apparently depends not on Ca2+ influx into
the postsynaptic receptor, but on Ca2+ influx
into the presynaptic cell after the LTP-inducing
stimulus.
Kandel refers to this as nonassociative - the
organism learns about the properties of a single
stimulus.
Habituation and sensitization are examples of
this type of learning.
Neuroplasticity in the Hippocampus
Neurogenesis - helps the brain to be modified in
adaptation to changing environmental conditions.
• Learning that involves the hippocampus results in new cells
surviving at a higher rate.
• The cells become part of neural circuits established by a
temporal-based learning experience.
• Enriched environments have been shown to increase the
size of an animal’s brain, their level of cortical ACh, and their
learning ability.
• Studies have shown enriched environments increase
hippocampal neurogenesis, even in adult
animals.
The Role of the Mediodorsal
Thalamus
Mediodorsal thalamus - A brain structure associated
with profound memory impairment.
People with Korsakoff’s syndrome often have atrophy
of cells in the mediodorsal thalamus caused by a
deficiency of Vitamin B1.
Loss of declarative rather than procedural memory.
Patients are unaware that they don’t remember; make
up stories (confabulation) to fill in the gaps.
Emotion is generally intact with medial temporal lobe
damage but patients with mediodorsal thalamic
damage tend to be emotionally flat and apathetic
Caudate Nucleus-Putamen
Memory System
Caudate nucleus
and putamen
control the ability
to develop
procedural
memory.
The Amygdala and Memory
Stimulation of the amygdala results in enhancing
the memory of a task
Inhibition of the amygdala results in decreasing
the emotional arousal effects on memory.
Alzheimer’s Disease
A type of dementia characterized by
progressive neurological degeneration and a
profound deterioration of mental
functioning.
• Early onset - before age 65
• Risk factors include familial clustering of cases,
increasing
age, and Down
syndrome.
Alzheimer’s Disease
The Cellular Basis of
Alzheimer’s Disease
Cellular basis of AD
• Neurofibrillary tangles
• Senile plaques
• Amyloid beta protein
Alzheimer’s Disease:
Genetics
There is a link with chromosome 21
Another gene identified is ApoE on chromosome 19
Some people have one or two ApoE4 alleles and
have a greater risk of having late-onset AD.
The product of ApoE4 is not an effective antioxidant
for amyloid beta protein as are the products of
other alleles.
This may indicate a need to develop more effective
methods to increase antioxidants in the brains of
AD patients.