The Brain’s Multiple Memory Systems

Today’s Forecast 1)Beginning a: Studying memory in animals b: Human lesion studies 2)Middle a: Student presentations 3) End a: Memento and The Bourne Movies

U5Tq2k How reliable are your memories? Things to never ever (seriously NEVER PLEASE) forget after this course #forscience, number 1: Recalling a memory is a reconstructive process not a perfect tape-recorded version of the past

p.314 W. W. Norton

Memory bends the arrow of time (Eichenbaum et al., 2000) Episodic memory – recollecting events with spatial (where), temporal (when), and informational (what) dimensions

Memory bends the arrow of time (Eichenbaum et al., 2000) Procedural memory – learning how to perform different actions and skills, often referred to as “habit learning” or “motor memory”

Memory bends the arrow of time at Tufts too

The neural cartographer (Penfield, W., The Cerebral Cortex of Man, 1950) ~5-8% of patients reported vivid recall of memories, recent and distant, and sometimes even hallucinations after temporal lobe stimulation

(Eichenbaum et al., 2000 & 2007) The distributed nature of memories

The hippocampus The tiniest of cues can elicit the rich recall of past events—the sights, sounds, smells, flavors, and textures. The hippocampus receives input from every sensory area “Place cells” are thought to represent a map of the space around us

odVHh4 The hippocampus receives input from every sensory area

The human side of hippocampus lesions U47i2xgw Clive has both anterograde (can’t form new memories) and retrograde (can’t recall old memories) amnesia 5K8d-c Larry Squire on Memory

What could Clive still do? Clive can still play the piano, but cannot remember his own identity He can still use a fork and knives and feed himself He can still walk upright Anything else?

Hollywood and Hippocampus lesions: Memento player_detailpage&v=Pj5laLK4itI#t=29 What can Leonard do? TXDNxao S8GI4 What kind of amnesia is this? If memories are our identities, what do you think its unreliability says about us as people?

The amygdala AStzt21ZdE EFQ0SxB6yo What was the finding?

The amygdala Often called Kluver-Bucy Syndrome

The striatum Uncoordinated, jerky body movements become more apparent, along with a decline in mental abilities ch?v=KleHA0fv0Eg

Place vs. Response; Hippocampus vs. Striatum

Hippocampus vs. Striatum vs. Amygdala Ctrl |HPC | Str | Amg

Hollywood and Hippocampus lesions: Jason Bourne dd5lQ FAC6rzk DCHQ0 What can Bourne do? What kind of amnesia is this? What areas could be affected?

Summary

Group Project Bourne vs. Leonard – similarities and differences? Clive vs. Hollywood – similarities and differences? If you were the director of the movie, what would you change about how amnesia was portrayed?

Ws8l0 One of the most accurate depictions of amnesia in Hollywood

Group quiz We are in the south arm of a building. To get to the men’s bathroom from here, we have to go outside and head west. To the east is the women’s bathroom. Test day: Our usual entrance is closed and we all start in the building from the North. If all the men start from the north, what happens (in terms of strategy used to find the bathroom) if: 1) After a few learning trials of finding the men’s bathroom, their HPC is damaged? What if the striatum is damaged? 2) After hundreds of trials of finding the men’s bathroom, the Striatum is damaged? What if the hippocampus is damaged? 3) Amygdala damage in general?

Name that brain area!