Lecture 2: memory and emotions (3.6 Neuropsychology)

HC2: Memory and emotions
Question: the motor but not the visual cortex has a hierarchical organization
Answer: false. All of our cortex is highly organized, the motor and visual cortex are both
hierarchical organized.

Question: thesis: this idea is supported by the volume-control theory
Lesions of the basal ganglia cause delayed or impaired initiation of a movement
Answer: true

Question: the associative agnosia is caused by lesion of the motor cortex
Answer: false.

Question: thesis: these patients are not able to copy movements
Fact: ideomotor agnosia is caused by lesion in the posterior parietal lobe
Answer: true

Memory
 Learning and memory are two processes tightly related
 Learning refers to a change in the behavior due to previous experiences (when we
behave in a certain way and we get a reward, it is likely you will show this behavior
again sometime, and vice versa).
 Memory represents a system in which knowledge about the world
 When we learn something, we have to storage the information the long-term
memory system is very important for this.

Memory occurs in time-organized stages




Sleep is very important for the consolidation step. During consolidation, what happens in the
brain, is that the neuron makes a new connection and through this new connection we can
connect all our memories with newer information. After we have consolidated/saved our
information, we might use this information for responding to the environment in a proper
way. Maybe in a new environment, but the characteristics are similar so you can properly
behave in this environment because you have the information. Every time we recall a
memory, we put this memory in an instable stage. This memory can be modified and
updated. While we have updated the memory trace for one situation, we need to

, reconsolidate these traces so the information will undergo a consolidation process and after
that an update of the trace will take place.

Study:
While the participants were doing this memory task, they were smelling an odor  they
associate the game to the odor. Then they asked participants to sleep in the lab and they
monitored their sleep while using EEG (you can also record the activity frequency of the
cortical region), and sleep is characterized by different frequencies (slow wave, high wave,
REM). They presented the odor during sleep, so the participant didn’t need to be awake. For
some participants it was done in the slow wave sleep stage and for others in the REM stage.
If you present the odor in one of these phases you can recall the memory of this task and
you can influence the consolidation process of the task.
 If you influence you should see that in the performance one day later. In the second
task without the presence of the odor.
 When the consolidation happened during slow wave stage, the performance should
have been increased one day later.
 For the consolidation process the rapid eye movement plays a more important role,
so then you should see improvements in the performance after those participants
had smelled the odor during REM sleep.




So, what they found:
 The performance of the participants did improve one day later, but only for the
participants who had smelled the odor during the slow wave sleep and not for the
participants who had smelled the odor during REM sleep. Indicating that
consolidation process seems to be mainly happening during sleep but during our
slow wave sleep!