LEARNING, MEMORY

AND AMNESIA
Shaira Mae M. Regala, RPm
Learning and Memory

■ Learning – deals with how experiences change the brain

■ Memory – deals with how these changes are stored and
subsequently activated.
INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL
 TYPES OF MEMORY
■ Explicit Memory –memory of facts and experiences that
individuals consciously know and can state. Also called
declarative memory.
■ Implicit Memory – memory without conscious recollection;
involves skills and routine procedures that are automatically
performed. Also known as procedural memory.
■ Semantic Memory – explicit memories for general facts and
information.
■ Episodic Memory – explicit memories for particular events
of one’s life. Also known as autobiographical memory.
MEDIAL TEMPORAL LOBE
responsible for the formation of memories and
spatial cognition

drives numerous types of emotional responses and interact

with other regions to encode emotional valence in various
situations
 STUDIES IN MEMORY
■ The recent history of autobiographical memory research begins
in the 1950s with the study of H.M., a man who developed
severe amnesia after bilateral surgical removal of the medial
temporal lobes (including most of the hippocampus, the
parahippocampal gyrus, and the amygdala) in an effort to lessen
the severity of his epilepsy.
■ H.M. retained his basic intelligence and his personality but lost
the ability to remember anything that happened to him after the
operation.
■ Researchers noticed, however, that H.M. could retain information
for a short time, and could also acquire new motor skills such as
mirror writing, solving puzzles, or tracing mazes, without knowing
that he was doing so, a form of procedural memory.
 WHERE ARE MEMORIES STORED?
■ Memories are stored
diffusely in the brain and can
thus can survive destruction
of any single structure.
■ Memories become more
resistant to disruption over
time.
 WHERE ARE MEMORIES STORED?
INFEROTEMPORAL CORTEX

■ Involved in the visual

perception of objects and
together with perirhinal
cortex, stores visual patterns.
 WHERE ARE MEMORIES STORED?
AMYGDALA

■ Play a special role in memory

for the emotional significance
of experiences.
■ Involved in strengthening
emotionally significant
memories stored in other
structures.
 WHERE ARE MEMORIES STORED?
PREFRONTAL CORTEX

■ Anterograde and retrograde

deficits in memory for the
temporal order of events.
■ Deficits in working memory
(ability to maintain relevant
memories while a task is
being completed)
 WHERE ARE MEMORIES STORED?
CEREBELLUM AND STRIATUM

■ Cerebellum is thought to
store memories of learned
sensorimotor skills.
■ Striatum is thought to store
memories for consistent
relationship between stimuli
and responses – habit
formation.
 MEDIAL TEMPORAL LOBE AMNESIA
■ Damage in the MTL causing anterograde amnesia but retaining
explicit and semantic memory.
- Anterograde amnesia (AA) refers to an impaired capacity for new learning.
- Retrograde amnesia (RA) refers to the loss of information that was acquired
before the onset of amnesia.
■ Cognitive abilities, general intelligence and language remain
normal.
■ Although patients can remember little of their episodic memory,
they progressed through mainstream schools and acquired
reasonable levels of language ability and factual knowledge.
However, their episodic memory did not improve.
 AMNESIA OF KORSAKOFF’S SYNDROME
■ Common in people who have consumed large amounts of
alcohol associated with Vitamin B thiamine deficiency.
■ Characterized by variety of sensory and motor problems,
extreme confusion, personality changes and a risk of death
from liver, gastrointestinal or heart disorders.
■ Postmortem revealed lesions in medial diencephalon and
diffuse damage in neocortex, hippocampus and cerebellum.
■ Initial retrograde amnesia develops but progresses to severe to
the point of forgetting childhood memories.
 AMNESIA OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE
■ Alzheimer’s Disease is another major cause of amnesia.
■ First sign of AD is often mild deterioration of memory. However it
progresses and eventually develops to dementia – severe
deterioration of memory that the patient is incapable of doing
simple activities such as eating, speaking and recognizing
spouse or bladder control.
■ Major anterograde and retrograde deficits in implicit memory.
■ The level of acetylcholine is greatly reduced in AD patients.
■ This reduction results in degradation of basal forebrain which is
the brain’s main source of acetylcholine.
AMNESIA OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE
■ Damage in medial temporal lobe and the prefrontal cortex.
POSTTRAUMATIC AMNESIA
■ Amnesia following a nonpenetrating blow to the head.
 INFANTILE AMNESIA
■ We all experience infantile amnesia, that is, we remember
virtually nothing of the events of our infancy.
■ Tendency for adults to have few autobiographical memories from
below age 5.
 SMART DRUGS: DO THEY WORK?
■ Nootropics or Smart drugs – are substances (drugs,
supplements, herbal extract etc) that are though to improve
memory.
 SMART DRUGS: DO THEY WORK?
■ Although nootropics are often marketed to healthy adults
wanting to improve their memories, most research has been
done with either nonhumans or humans with memory difficulties
(elderly).
■ The relevant research with humans tends to be of low quality,
with few participants, poor controls and little effort to
differentiate among various kinds of memory (Gold, Cahill &
Wenk, 2002; McDaniel, Maier & Einstein, 2002; Rose, 2002).
 ■ Write your own autobiography and present all the types of
memory (explicit, implicit, declarative, procedural, etc.) you
have gained until now.
■ Follow this guide:
- Your basic information (full name, age, general location, how
you describe yourself)
- Your family background (parents, their occupation, siblings,
family dynamics)
SPECIAL PROJECT: - Describe your childhood memories and childhood
MY environment
- Elementary school life (your achievements, significant
AUTOBIOGRAPHY memories)
- Junior and senior high school life (your achievements,
significant memories)
- Current college school life
- Social or romantic life
- Interests, hobbies and aspirations in life
▪ Submit via Assignment thread, My Autobiography, until March
24, 2022, 11:59 pm. File Name: My Autobiography_Surname