Learning and Memory

Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain

Functioning
• An early influential idea was that physical changes
occur when something new is learned or a
memory is formed.
• Explanations was that connections grew between
areas of the brain.
• Led to the search for localized representations of
memory
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Ivan Pavlov pioneered classical conditioning in
which pairing of two stimuli changes the response
to one of them.
• A conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an
unconditioned stimulus (UCS) which automatically
results in an unconditioned response (UCR).
• After several pairings, response can be elicited by
the CS without the UCS,
• New response is now called a conditioned response
(CR).
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• In operant conditioning, responses are followed by
reinforcement or punishment that either
strengthen or weaken the behavior.
• Reinforcers are events that increase the probability that
the response will occur again.
• Punishment are events that decrease the probability
that the response will occur again.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
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• Pavlov believed that conditioning strengthened
connections between the CS center and UCS
center in the brain.
• Karl Lashley set out to prove this by searching for
such engrams, or physical representations of what
had been learned.
• Believed that a knife cut should abolish the newly
learned response.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
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• Lashley’s studies attempted to see if disrupting
certain connections between cortical brain areas
would disrupt abilities to learn associations.
• Found that learning and memory did not depend
entirely on connections across the cortex
• Also found that learning did not depend on a
single area of the cortex.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Lashley proposed two key principles about the nervous
system:
• Equipotentiality – all parts of the cortex contribute equally to
complex functioning behaviors (e.g. learning)
• Mass action – the cortex works as a whole, not as solitary
isolated units.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Richard F. Thompson et. al. suggested that the
engram for classical conditioning is located in the
cerebellum, not the cortex.
• During conditioning, changes occur in the lateral
interpositus nucleus (LIP) of the cerebellum
• Responses increase as learning proceeds
• necessary for learning and retention
• However, a change in a brain area does not
necessarily mean that learning took place in that
area.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Suppression of activity in the LIP led to a condition
in which the subject displayed no previous
learning.
• As suppression wore off, the animal began to learn
at the same speed as animals that had no previous
training.
• But suppression of the red nucleus also led to a
similar condition.
• Later assumed that the learning did occur in the
LIP, as it was the last structure that needed to be
awake for learning to occur.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Psychologist differentiate between learning and
memory.
• Hebb (1949) differentiated between two types of
memory:
• Short-term memory – memory of events that have just
occurred.
• Long-term memory – memory of events from times further
back.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Differences between STM and LTM
• Short-term memory has a limited capacity; long-term
memory does not.
• Short-term memory fades quickly without rehearsal;
long-term memories persist.
• Memories from long-term memory can be stimulated
with a cue/ hint; retrieval of memories lost from STM
do not benefit from the presence of a cue.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Researchers propose all information enters STM
where the brain consolidates it into LTM.
• Later research has weakened the distinction
between STM and LTM
• Working Memory
• Proposed by Baddeley & Hitch as an alternative to
short-term memory.
• Emphasis on temporary storage of information to
actively attend to it and work on it for a period of time.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Common test of working memory is the delayed
response task.
• Requires responding to something you heard or saw a
short while ago.
• Research points to the prefrontal cortex for the
storage of this information
• Brain may use elevated levels of calcium to
potentiate later responses
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Older people often have impairments in working
memory.
• Changes in the prefrontal cortex assumed to be
the cause.
• Declining activity of the prefrontal cortex in the
elderly is associated with decreasing memory.
• Increased activity is indicative of compensation for
other regions in the brain.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Amnesia is the loss of memory.
• Studies on amnesia help to clarify the distinctions
between and among different kinds of memories
and their mechanisms.
• Different areas of the hippocampus are active
during memory formation and retrieval.
• Damage results in amnesia.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• H.M. is a famous case study in psychology who had
his hippocampus removed to prevent epileptic
seizures.
• Afterwards H.M. had great difficulty forming new
long-term memories.
• STM or working memory remained intact.
• Suggested that the hippocampus is vital for the
formation of new long-term memories.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• H.M. showed massive anterograde amnesia after the
surgery.
• Two major types of amnesia include:
• Anterograde amnesia – the loss of the ability to form new
memory after the brain damage
• Retrograde amnesia – the loss of memory events prior to the
occurrence of the brain damage.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Patient HM also displayed greater “implicit” than
“explicit” memory.
• Explicit memory – deliberate recall of information that one
recognizes as a memory.
• Implicit memory – the influence of recent experience on
behavior without realizing one is using memory.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• H.M. had difficulty with episodic memory and
declarative memory.
• Episodic memory: ability to recall single events.
• Declarative memory: ability to state a memory into
words.
• H.M.’s procedural memory remained intact.
• Procedural memory: ability to develop motor skills
(remembering or learning how to do things).
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Research of the function of the hippocampus
suggests the following:
1. The hippocampus is critical for declarative memory
functioning (especially episodic).
2. The hippocampus is especially important for spatial
memory.
3. The hippocampus is especially important for
configural learning and binding.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Research in the role of the hippocampus in episodic
memory shows damage impairs abilities on two types
of tasks:
• Delayed matching-to-sample tasks – a subject sees an object
and must later choose the object that matches.
• Delayed non-matching-to-sample tasks– subject sees an
object and must later choose the object that is different than
the sample.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
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• Damage to the hippocampus also impairs abilities
on spatial tasks such as:
• Radial mazes – a subject must navigate a maze that has eight
or more arms with a reinforcer at the end.
• Morris water maze task – a rat must swim through murky
water to find a rest platform just underneath the surface.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
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• Hippocampus may also be important for
contextual learning
• Remembering the detail and context of an event
• suggests that the hippocampus is important in the
process of “consolidation”.
• Damage to the hippocampus impairs recent
learning more than older learning.
• The more consolidated a memory becomes, the less it
depends on the hippocampus.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
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• Reverberating circuits of neuronal activity were
thought to be the mechanisms of consolidation.
• Consolidation is also influenced by the passage of
time and emotions.
• Small to moderate amounts of cortisol activate the
amygdala and hippocampus where they enhance
storage and consolidation of recent experiences.
• Prolonged stress impairs memory.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Different kinds of brain damage result in different
types of amnesia.
• Two common types of brain damage include:
1. Korsakoff’s syndrome
2. Alzheimer’s disease
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Korsakoff’s syndrome – brain damage caused by
prolonged thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency
• impedes the ability of the brain to metabolize glucose.
• Leads to a loss of or shrinkage of neurons in the brain.
• Often due to chronic alcoholism.
• Symptoms include apathy, confusion, and forgetting
and confabulation (taking guesses to fill in gaps in
memory).
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
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• Alzheimer’s disease is associated with a gradually
progressive loss of memory often occurring in old age.
• Affects 50% of people over 85.
• Early onset seems to be influenced by genes, but 99%
of cases are late onset.
• About half of all patients with late onset have no
known relative with the disease.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Alzheimer’s disease is associated with an accumulation
and clumping of the following brain proteins:
• Amyloid beta protein 42 which produces widespread atrophy
of the cerebral cortex, hippocampus and other areas.
• An abnormal form of the tau protein, part of the intracellular
support system of neurons.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Accumulation of the tau protein results in:
• Plaques – structures formed from degenerating
neurons.
• Tangles – structures formed from degenerating
structures within a neuronal body.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
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• A major area of damage is the basal forebrain and
treatment includes enhancing acetylcholine
activity.
• One experimental treatment includes the
stimulation of cannabinoid receptors that limits
overstimulation by glutamate.
• Research with mice suggests the possibility of
immunizing against Alzheimer’s by stimulating the
production of antibodies against amyloid beta
protein.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Lessons from studying amnesiac patients include:
• There can be deficiencies of very different aspects of
memory.
• There are independent kinds of memory.
• Various kinds of memory depend on different brain
areas.
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Other subcortical brain areas and the cortex
important in learning:
• Amygdala associated with fear learning
• Parietal lobe associated with piecing information
together
• anterior and inferior region of the temporal lobe
and semantic memory
• semantic dementia (loss of semantic memory)
Learning, Memory, Amnesia, and Brain
Functioning
• Other areas of the cortex important in learning
(con’t):
• Prefrontal cortex and learning about rewards and
punishments
• Basal ganglia, anterior cingulate cortex also involved
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Activity in the brain results in physical changes.
• Patterns of activity leave a path of physical
changes.
• Not every change is a specific memory as was once
originally believed.
• Many ideas originally believed to be true have
been refined.
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• A Hebbian synapse occurs when the successful
stimulation of a cell by an axon leads to the
enhanced ability to stimulate that cell in the
future.
• Increases in effectiveness occur because of
simultaneous activity in the presynaptic and
postsynaptic neurons.
• Such synapses may be critical for many kinds of
associative learning.
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Studies of how physiology relates to learning often
focus on invertebrates and try to generalize to
vertebrates.
• The aplysia is a slug-like invertebrate that is often
studied due to its large neurons.
• This allows researchers to study basic processes
such as:
• Habituation
• Sensitization
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Habituation is a decrease in response to a
stimulus that is presented repeatedly and
accompanied by no change in other stimuli.
• Depends upon a change in the synapse between the
sensory neurons and the motor neurons.
• Sensory neurons fail to excite motor neurons as they
did previously.
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Sensitization is an increase in response to a mild
stimulus as a result to previous exposure to more
intense stimuli.
• Changes at identified synapses include:
• Serotonin released from a facilitating neuron blocks
potassium channels in the presynaptic neuron.
• Prolonged release of transmitter from that neuron
results in prolonged sensitization.
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Long-term Potentiation (LTP) occurs when one or
more axons bombard a dendrite with stimulation.
• Leaves the synapse “potentiated” for a period of time
and the neuron is more responsive
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Properties of LTP that suggest it as a cellular basis
of learning and memory include:
• Specificity
• Cooperativity
• Associativity
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Specificity – only synapses onto a cell that have been
highly active become strengthened.
• Cooperativity – simultaneous stimulation by two or
more axons produces LTP much more strongly than
does repeated stimulation by a single axon.
• Associativity – pairing a weak input with a strong input
enhances later responses to a weak input.
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Long-term depression (LTD) is a prolonged
decrease in response at a synapse that occurs
when axons have been active at a low frequency.
• The opposite of LTP
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Biochemical mechanisms of LTP are known to
depend on changes at glutamate and GABA
primarily in the postsynaptic neuron
• This occurs at several types of receptor sites
including the ionotropic receptors:
• AMPA receptors
• NMDA receptors
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• LTP in hippocampal neurons occurs as follows:
• Repeated glutamate excitation of AMPA receptors
depolarizes the membrane.
• The depolarization removes magnesium ions that had
been blocking NMDA receptors.
• Glutamate is then able to excite the NMDA receptors,
opening a channel for calcium ions to enter the neuron.
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Entry of calcium through the NMDA channel triggers
further changes.
• Activation of a protein that sets in motion a series of
events occurs.
• More AMPA receptors are built and dendritic branching
is increased.
• These changes increase the later responsiveness of
the dendrite to incoming glutamate.
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• Changes in presynaptic neuron can also cause LTP.
• Extensive stimulation of a postsynaptic cell causes
the release of a retrograde transmitter that travels
back to the presynaptic cell to cause the following
changes:
• Decrease in action potential threshold
• Increase neurotransmitter release of
• Expansion of the axons.
• Transmitter release from additional sites.
Storing Information in the Nervous System
• LTP reflects increased activity by the presynaptic
neuron and increased responsiveness by the
postsynaptic neuron
• Understanding the mechanisms of changes that
enhance or impair LTP may lead to drugs that
improve or block memory.
• Increasing production of hormones increased by LTP
• Ginkgo biloba
• Etc.