Neuroscience
The new October issue of the American Psychological Association's Monitor on Psychology includes several short articles of interest to neuroscience readers. One of these articles is about one researcher's career of researching memory systems. Here is a snip from the full article, "Memory Divided" by Deborah Smith Bailey:
- Watching New Memories Form
Biologically-speaking, new memories are based on changes to synapses – the gaps across which neurons communicate with each other. Now scientists in America say they have found a way to witness these synaptic changes right after they've happened,...
- Intuition Enhanced By Drug
A sedative drug that interferes with memory also has the contrasting effect of enhancing intuition – the ability to use one’s ‘gut feelings’ – according to researchers at the Universities of Arizona and Colorado. Michael Frank and colleagues...
- Bidirectional Competition Between Striatum And Hippocampus During Learning
The "dry cleaning effect" paper was finally published online Monday Oct 27 at PNAS, a full week after the initial press release. To briefly review: 'Dry cleaning effect' explained by forgetful Yale researcher Yale researchers have described how...
- P25 And Memory Functioning
From the BBC, a report about a recent research study published in the journal Neuron:'Jekyll and Hyde' dementia clue BBC 10 December 2005 [snip] In the study, the researchers "switched on" p25 at will in the brain's learning and memory centre,...
- "new Thinking About The Brain" On The Connection
WBUR's radio show "The Connection" discussed "New Thinking about the Brain" today. Guests Earl Miller, Professor of Neuroscience and Associate Director of The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and Matt Wilson, Professor of Neuroscience also...
Neuroscience
Memory Divided
The new October issue of the American Psychological Association's Monitor on Psychology includes several short articles of interest to neuroscience readers. One of these articles is about one researcher's career of researching memory systems. Here is a snip from the full article, "Memory Divided" by Deborah Smith Bailey:
[ ... Read the full article ... ]
Past research has shown that largely separate memory systems are involved in learning different kinds of tasks, Packard said. For example, the hippocampus is key to cognitive learning, such as spatial mapping--useful for rats remembering where to find food in a maze when they are released from a new starting point--while the caudate nucleus mediates stimulus-response or habit learning--such as simply learning to turn left in a maze to find food, regardless of the starting point.
Damaging one of these respective brain areas wipes out an animal's ability to learn specific tasks. For example, hippocampal system lesions impair spatial learning, while caudate nucleus lesions impair habit learning--findings replicated in humans and other primates.
Moreover, Packard's research has shown that injecting memory-enhancing drugs into the hippocampus can heighten performance on tasks that require cognitive memory, while boosts to the caudate nucleus improve rats' performance on habit-learning tasks.
However, said Packard, rats with hippocampal lesions actually perform better than undamaged rats on some habit-learning tasks that use the caudate nucleus. The findings suggest that the hippocampal memory system sometimes interferes with learning in the caudate nucleus.
- Watching New Memories Form
Biologically-speaking, new memories are based on changes to synapses – the gaps across which neurons communicate with each other. Now scientists in America say they have found a way to witness these synaptic changes right after they've happened,...
- Intuition Enhanced By Drug
A sedative drug that interferes with memory also has the contrasting effect of enhancing intuition – the ability to use one’s ‘gut feelings’ – according to researchers at the Universities of Arizona and Colorado. Michael Frank and colleagues...
- Bidirectional Competition Between Striatum And Hippocampus During Learning
The "dry cleaning effect" paper was finally published online Monday Oct 27 at PNAS, a full week after the initial press release. To briefly review: 'Dry cleaning effect' explained by forgetful Yale researcher Yale researchers have described how...
- P25 And Memory Functioning
From the BBC, a report about a recent research study published in the journal Neuron:'Jekyll and Hyde' dementia clue BBC 10 December 2005 [snip] In the study, the researchers "switched on" p25 at will in the brain's learning and memory centre,...
- "new Thinking About The Brain" On The Connection
WBUR's radio show "The Connection" discussed "New Thinking about the Brain" today. Guests Earl Miller, Professor of Neuroscience and Associate Director of The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and Matt Wilson, Professor of Neuroscience also...