Learning and Memory: Biological Perspectives

1
Learning and Memory Biological Perspectives

• Brain Damage
• Types of Memory and Learning
• Memory Stages
• Brain Areas Involved in Memory
• Evolutionary / Developmental Aspects of Memory

2
Brain Damage

• Retrograde amnesia
• Inability to retrieve memories prior to accident
• Anterograde amnesia / Medial temporal lobe
  medial diencephalon
• Inability to form new memories
• Herpes simplex virus
• Ischemia
• Korsakoffs Syndrome
• Lack of thiamine
• Confabulation

3
Several Kinds of Memory and Learning

• Skill learning (H.M. and procedural v.
  declarative memory)
• Priming
• Conditioning
• Latent learning

4
Memory Stages

• Iconic brief
• STM
• 30s (w/out rehearsal)
• Encoding
• Intermediate term
• Encoding
• LTM hippocampus processing cortex storage
• Memory trace decays with time (i.e., retrieval
  declines)
• Emotion modulates (PTSD) memory formation
• Propanolol (anti-adrenergic) beta blocker

5
Brain Areas Memory Aspects

• Medial temporal lobe declarative memory
• DNMS in non-human primates
• Space and time hippocampus
• Own locomotor response caudate nucleus
• Sensory perception extrastriate cortex

6
Evolutionary / Developmental Aspects of Learning
Memory

• Genetic constraints on learning
• genetically stupid
• Specific abilities to learn
• Environmental pressures
• Hippocampal size gt food-storing birds
• Only if food-storing due to spatial memory
• Infants lt7 or 8 months unsuccessful at choosing
  hidden object w/ delay (break in visual fixation)
• Development of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
• Aged individuals decrease in memory tasks of
  conscious recollection