Brain mechanisms: Learning and working memory

Brain mechanisms: Learning and working memory

1. Drugs

2. Different mechanisms underpin short-term and long-term memory

   • Hebb made distinction between changes in electrochemical activity associated with short-term memory (labile) and structural changes associated with long-term (permanent) memories

3. C. elegans learns to associate temperature with food (Sasakura & Mori, 2012)

   • When lacking food, they migrate to area with temperature previously associated with food
     • Mechanism: 1) Temperature is sensed and information stored in AFD (& AWC
       • 2) Then transmitted to core interneurons (AIY, AIZ, & RIA), which integrate thermal information and food state (utilising monoamines and insulin) to generate behaviour

4. Lateral pre-frontal cortex underpins short-term activation, storage and manipulation of information

5. Manoach & White (2003) investigated working memory using Sternberg Item Recognition Paradigm

   • Increased activity found in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and supplementary Motor Area (SMA) during the act of matching information held in memory to a question

6. Different areas of pre-frontal cortex deal with different kinds of information (Smith & Jondes, 1997)

   • 1. spatial working memory retains information about spatial location in the dorsal and upper region
   • 2. memory for an object /pattern retains information about visual features like shape. Involvement of lower and ventral region, which correspond to ‘what’ pathway of the ‘what/where’ visual system