PSYC 3610 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Occipital Lobe, Frontal Lobe
20 Jun 2018
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CHAPTER 2 MEMORY AND THE BRAIN
What is a Brain?
The Search for Engram
Brain and Memory
Neurons
Transmission of Information
Neurotransmitters
Structures of the Human Brain
Subcortical Structures
Hippocampus
Amygdala
Diencephalon
Lobes of the Cerebral Cortex
Occipital
Parietal
Temporal
Frontal
Prefrontal cortex/areas
Neuroimaging
EEG (Electroencephalography)
MEG (magnetoencephalography)
Positron Emission Tomography
(PET)
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Brain Stimulation Techniques
Transcranial Magnetic
Stimulation (TMS)
Transcranial Direct Current
Stimulation (tDCS)
Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)
Neuropsychology
Chemical Enhancement of Memory
Cholinergics
Caffeine
Gingko
Benzodiazepines
Olfactory, Memory, and the Brain
Music and Memory
The Man of a 7-second Memory
(video)
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What is a Brain?
• For a cognitive neuroscientist, the brain is a complex assortment of separate
areas and regions, each of which has its own unique function.
o Also considers the role of the various white-matter tracts that connect
different regions of the brain
• For a neurosurgeon, the brain is a mass of soft tissue inside the head that has
to be handled very carefully when damaged.
o The brain does not feel pain.
The Search for Engram
• Are there specific areas of the brain that store specific memories?
o Knowing where memories are stored would allow neuropsychologists
to predict particular forms of amnesia.
o If certain areas of the brain store memories, then we need to respect
these areas when probing the brain during neurosurgery.
• Engram: the hypothetical physical unit of storage of a memory
• Lashley searched for the “engram” but did not find it.
o Suspected that there might be specific cells or groups of cells that
transform when new information has been acquired.
o Forced to conclude that there are no engrams and that memory
representation instead occurs because of a connection between
disparate areas in the brain
• The conventional wisdom is that that stored memories are distributed
throughout the brains and that stored memories have more to do with
connections across spatially separate areas of the brain than any specific
area.
o Addis et al. (2012) showed that visual areas of the brain are activated
during autobiographical recall as well as more standard memory
areas, such as the hippocampus.
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• Quiroga and colleagues (2005) used fMRI and have found cells in the
temporal lobe that respond to specific memories.
o These areas of the brain responded selectively to either the picture or
the name of one celebrity but not another celebrity.
o Some have challenged the generalizability of their findings because it
was done with single-cell recording of volunteers who were about to
have brain surgery.
o There have also been failures to replicate this study.
Brain and Memory
• Medical implications of understanding brain-memory relationships
o Knowing how the brain forms memories means that we may be better
able to intervene in memory loss, especially memory loss associated
with pathological aging.
• Alzheimer’s disease: one of many dementia-type illnesses that are more
common in older adults than in younger adults
o First deficit detected is the development of amnesic (memory loss)
symptoms.
o In early stages, patients have trouble learning new information and
retrieving recent events.
o During later stages, it involves the loss of knowledge of the past and
eventually the identity of close relatives.
• Understanding the neural processes of memory will help medical research to
be able to prevent Alzheimer’s or alleviate the symptoms.
• Normal aging is also characterized by memory loss.
o Much of this loss is correlated to changes in the brain.
o Understanding brain-memory relationships could wind up benefitting
normal older adults as well.
Document Summary
6: sensory systems have specialized neurons called receptor cells, have modified dendrites, transform physical energy, such as light, into an electrochemical neural signal. Hippocampus: an area of the brain associated with learning and memory, damage can cause anterograde amnesia. 10: patient h. m. suffered epileptic seizures, and had parts of his medial temporal lobe, including his hippocampi, were surgically removed, couldn"t remember new memories, improve in mirror task (implicit memory) Diencephalon: the part of the brain that includes the thalamus and hypothalamus, with respect to memory, it includes massive connections between the medial temporal lobes and hippocampus with the prefrontal lobes, which are involved in memory as well. Other areas are involved in interpreting and labeling visual images. Frontal: the most anterior part of the cerebral cortex, higher emotion, decision-making, metacognition, memory. Prefrontal cortex/areas: the part of the frontal lobe most associated with higher emotions and memory, source monitoring: being able to distinguish if a memory is a personally.
