PSY-0009 Midterm: CBS Exam 2 Study Guide
23 May 2018
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PSY 9 Exam 2 Study Guide
Lecture 3/12, Memory
- Patient HM
- Bilateral temporal lobectomy in 1957
- Unable to recall conversations with visitor 30 minutes ago
- Unable to remember the fact that he had a visitor at all
- “At this moment, everything looks clear to me. But what happened just before?
That’s what worries me. It’s like waking from a dream. I just don’t remember”
- Preserved memory functions
- Can remember motor skills (how to ride a bike)
- Can remember facts (Paris is the capital of France)
- “Islands of memory”
- Memory is not unitary
- Medial temporal lobe amnesia
- Severe, non-progressive memory loss following brain injury/illness
- Preserved general intelligence and other cognitive abilities (perception, language,
attention)
- Amnesia
- Anterograde amnesia: inability to form new memories after brain damage
- Retrograde amnesia: loss of memories formed before brain damage
Lecture 3/26, Caffeine
- Caffeine withdrawal
- Abstinence in habitual caffeine consumers
- Slowed reaction time
- Reduced activity in the right dorsolateral PFC
- After treating with caffeine
- Performance improved
- Activity in the right dorsolateral PFC was similar to non-abstained
participants
- Method of action
- Adenosine
- Reduces wakefulness, neuron firing rate, and the release of
neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin)
- Caffeine inhbits the activity of adenosine
- increases/prolongs wakefulness, increases neuron firing rate, increases
release of neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin)
- Serotonin pathways in human brain
- Arousal, sleep, stress, attention, sexual behavior, mood regulation,
processing of sensory information in the cerebral cortex
- Acetylcholine
- Learning and memory, sleep wake cycles, arousal and sensory information
- Noradrenaline pathways in human brain
- Locus coeruleus
- LC→ forebrain, brain stem, spinal cord
- Control of arousal, sleep wake cycle, anxiety
- Brain stem
- anterior→ limbic structures, posterior→ brain stem, spinal cord
- Role unclear
- Nigrostriatal pathway
- Substantia nigra to striatum
- Motor control
- Death of neurons in this pathway can result in PD
- Tuberoinfundibular pathway
- Hypothalamus to pituitary gland
- Hormonal regulation, maternality, pregnancy, sensory process
- Mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways
- Ventral, tegmental area to nucleus accumebns, amygdala and hippocampus
and prefrontal cortex
- Motivation and emotional response, reward and desire, addiction
- Can cause hallucinations and schizophrenia if not functioning
properly
- Caffeine and memory: nap vs caffeine
- Nap showed higher number of words recalled for test vs caffeine
- No difference in placebo groups
- Caffeine and Alzheimer’s Disease
- Take home message for caffeine
- Decreased reaction time
- Improved vigilance/sustained performance
- Executive function
- Mixed effects but generally improved speed
- Facilitates working memory
- Memory
- Minimal effect but may depend on arousal
- Nap > caffeine
- Long term effects
- Generally protective
- May be specific to caffeine from coffee
Lecture 3/28, Multitasking
- Innatention blindness summary
- Cell phone conversations create innatention 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
- What’s going on?
- Retrieval deficit
- Problems on the way out
- Failure to retrieve prior episodes
- Encoding deficit
- Problems on the way in?
- Reduced attention to perceptual inputs
- Measure brain responses to brake lights (EEG)
- Brain wave summary
- ERP evidence for encoding deficits
- Dual-task conditions
- “Attention” brainwave diminshed by 50%
- Cell phone conversations may impair encoding of information necessary for the safe
operation of a motor vehicle
- How significant is the interference?
- 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
- Distracted vs drunk
- Car-following paradigm
- Follow periodically braking pace car
- Required timely and appropriate reactions
- Conditions
- Single-task driving
- Cell-phone driving
- Intoxicated driving (BAC=.08)
Document Summary
Unable to recall conversations with visitor 30 minutes ago. Unable to remember the fact that he had a visitor at all. At this moment, everything looks clear to me. Can remember motor skills (how to ride a bike) Can remember facts (paris is the capital of france) Preserved general intelligence and other cognitive abilities (perception, language, attention) Anterograde amnesia: inability to form new memories after brain damage. Retrograde amnesia: loss of memories formed before brain damage. Activity in the right dorsolateral pfc was similar to non-abstained participants. Reduces wakefulness, neuron firing rate, and the release of neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin) Caffeine inhbits the activity of adenosine increases/prolongs wakefulness, increases neuron firing rate, increases release of neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin) Arousal, sleep, stress, attention, sexual behavior, mood regulation, processing of sensory information in the cerebral cortex. Learning and memory, sleep wake cycles, arousal and sensory information. Brain stem anterior limbic structures, posterior brain stem, spinal cord.
