PSY260: - L14

Lecture §

• PDF:
• Memory Processes: Encoding, Consolidation and Retrieval
  • What (2) strategies are effective and not effective for memory encoding?
    • Effective:
      1. Relation association to prior knowledge
      2. Understanding of the concept (depth of processing)
         • Low-level processing is harder to encode
         • High-level processing is easier to encode
    • Not effective: simple repetition
  • What does hippocampus play in memory consolidation?
    • Systematic Consolidation
    • How can ECT effect reconsolidation?
      • Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) severely disrupts recently-acquired memories in humans (and animals)
  • What did Testing Effect suggest about memory retrival?
    • Active recalling (practice test) increase recall accuracy
    • Desirable difficulty: difficult but successful retrievals are better for memory than easier successful retrievals
    • More cues -> Better recall (less difficulty)
• Brain Substrates
  • Where are the Semantic Memory stored in the brain?
    • Semantic Memory memories seem to be stored in a distributed fashion throughout the cerebral cortex
      • Sensory Cortex stores sensory information
      • Association Cortex links sensory memories together
      • Different groups of neurons with complex receptive fields are found throughout the cortex
        • A network of neurons fire together at once to represent a specific image, such as a face
  • Which area of the brain is Consolidation depended on
    • Depend on the MTL, especially Hippocampus
    1. Standard consolidation theory
       • During learning, the MTL relays information to the cortex
       • Over time, the cortex gets the message and the memories become independent of the MTL
    2. Multiple memory trace theory
       • The MTL helps organize together the distributed semantic facts into specific episodic memories
       • True episodic memories are never fully independent of the MTL
  • What does the Frontal Lobe play in Consolidation?
    • Selecting information to be encoded into long term memory
    • It may suppress hippocampal activity to inhibit memory
• What does sleep contribute to Consolidation?
  • Cells in the hippocampus “replay” the the activity of memory during the day
  • Reactivation is important for consolidating important memories throughout the cortex (and not consolidating unimportant memories)
• How does LTP in the Hippocampus affect memory
  • | Diagram | Structure Importance | |---------|----------------------| | | 1. Glutamate release from terminal
    2. Bind to AMPA receptor
    3. $Na+$ enters receptive cell
    4. Cause depolarization in receptive cell
    5. Enough depolarization cause $M{g}^{2+}$ pops out of NMDA receptor
    6. $C{a}^{2+}$ enters receptive cell | | | 1. Calcium causes insertion of additional AMPA receptors
    2. Enhance memory
    3. Joe Tsien’s Doogie mouse (1999) shows that memory is enhanced by better object recognition |