PSY-0009 Final: Intro to CBS Final Study Guide
23 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
3/12
Patient HM:
-Unable to recall conversations with a visitor from 30 mins ago, not even the fact that he
had the conversation at all
-Preserved memory functions:
-Can remember motor skills (How to ride a bike)
-Can remember facts (Paris is the capital of France)
Medial Temporal Lobe Amnesia — Severe, non-progressive memory loss following brain
injury / illness
-Preserved general intelligence / other cognitive abilities (perception, language, attention)
Anterograde Amnesia — inability to form new memories after brain damage (Ex: Patient HM)
Retrograde Amnesia — loss of memories formed before brain damage
2/26
Impact of Caffeine withdrawal:
-slowed reaction time
-reduced activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
After treating withdrawal with caffeine again:
-performance improved
-activity in right dorsolateral PFC similar to before withdrawal
-Adenosine (sleep regulator) reduces wakefulness, neuron firing rate, and release of
neurotransmitters
-Caffeine inhibits/blocks the activity of adenosine by working on adenosine receptor
-Increases/Prolongs Wakefulness
-Increases Neuron Firing Rate
-Increases the Release of Neurotransmitters
-Other impacted NTs: Dopamine, Norepinepherine, Serotonin, Acetylcholine
—>All related to sleep-arousal cycles
-Getting sleep/napping is better than staying up and taking caffeine for memory
Study: having people memorize words and take a test the next day
-Conditions: caffeine, placebo, nap
Study: Genetically mutated rats (given Alzheimer's gene) fed diet of crude caffeine for 2 months
-Conditions: wild rat, Alzheimer’s (AD) rat control, AD rat with caffeine, AD rat with
crude caffeine (simulates coffee ingredients)
-Rats were put in a tub and had to find a hidden platform, recorded how long it took them
over 5 days
Results:
-AD control performed the worst
-AD with caffeine were next
-AD with crude caffeine were faster than normal caffeine
-Wild type was fastest
-Something about the ingredients in coffee mixed with the caffeine that most
improves cognitive functions
Notes of caffeine:
-Decreases reaction time
-Improves vigilance / sustained performance
-Mixed effects on executive function, but generally improves speed
-Facilitates working memory
-Minimal effect on memory, may depend on arousal
-Generally protective/ beneficial long term
-May be specific to coffee caffeine, not all cafeine
3/28
Inattentional Blindness — when something distracts your attention from events that could be
perceived
-Cell phone conversations create inattention blindness for traffic related events/scenes
-Drivers on cell phones look but fail to see up to half of the information in the driving
environment
-No evidence that drivers on cell phones process more traffic relevant information
-Attention plays a critical role in seeing and remembering information in dynamic
naturalistic environments
Retrieval deficit — failure to retrieve prior episodes/memory (problems on the way out)
Encoding deficit— reduced attention to perceptual inputs (problems on the way in)
-EEG is used to measure brain responses (i.e. to break lights)
-Event related potentials (ERPs) are evidence for encoding deficits
-In dual-task conditions the “attention” brain (P300) wave diminished by 50%
-Ex: Cell phone conversations may impair encoding of information necessary for the safe
operation of a motor vehicle
-Some epidemiological evidence suggests that the risk of being in an accident while using a cell
phone is similar to that of driving with a blood alcohol level at the legal limit (drunk)
Study: Car following paradigm (cases cell phone vs drunk, and a control)
-Follow a pace car that periodically brakes
-Required timely and appropriate reactions
-Results:
-Slower Braking: participants’ reaction time was slower
when on a cell phone
than when drunk
-Following distance: participants followed farther
behind when on a cell phone
than when drunk
-Collisions: more
rear end collisions with those on a cell phone than when drunk
-50% of teens, and 30% of adults report texting while driving
-Texting is much worse than talking on a cell phone when driving
-Even slower reactions
-Poorer vehicle control (10% of time out of lane)
-Collision risk is 23 times higher
-5 seconds of texting at 55mph is the length of a football field!
-Frequence multitaskers do not get better at it
-They have inflated self-perceptions of their task juggling
-Unaware of deficits
Document Summary
Unable to recall conversations with a visitor from 30 mins ago, not even the fact that he had the conversation at all. Can remember motor skills (how to ride a bike) . Can remember facts (paris is the capital of france) Medial temporal lobe amnesia severe, non-progressive memory loss following brain injury / illness. Preserved general intelligence / other cognitive abilities (perception, language, attention) Anterograde amnesia inability to form new memories after brain damage (ex: patient hm) Retrograde amnesia loss of memories formed before brain damage. Reduced activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Activity in right dorsolateral pfc similar to before withdrawal. Adenosine (sleep regulator) reduces wakefulness, neuron firing rate, and release of neurotransmitters. Caffeine inhibits/blocks the activity of adenosine by working on adenosine receptor. Getting sleep/napping is better than staying up and taking caffeine for memory. Study: having people memorize words and take a test the next day.
