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Memories and your Brain Psychology 3717 Introduction • Look, your memories MUST be in your brain • Somewhere….. • Questions arise though like umm where are they stored? • How are they stored? • Is it just new connections or something else? Don’t be afraid, it is just a bit of rote memorization • Unless you know Greek and Latin… • Brain is organized in, at best, a semi random pattern • Some of the names are confusing – Substantia negra – Zona inserta • Some make a teeny bit of sense – Hippocampus – amygdila A few key terms • • • • • • • Anterior Caudal Dorsal Frontal Inferior Lateral Medial • • • • • • Posterior Rostral Sagittal Superior Ventral dorsal Time for a diagram! Some important Subcortical structures • • • • • • Hippocampus Amygdila Thalamus Hypothalamus Nucleus accumbens Medula The cells • There are two basic types of cells in the brain, neurons and glial cells • Neurons do the transmitting • Glia do the support functions • There are many types of neurons and glial cells, but we don’t have to be too concerned about those Fall in to the gap • Between neurons there are teensy gaps • The synapse • Neurotransmitters go across the gap to cause the next neuron to fire • Why not direct connections? • Allows for modulatory properties of drugs and other chemicals Learning and memory may happen here • Seems sensible that learning and memory could happen here • New synapses? – Enriched rats • Long Term Potentiation – Maybe – Looked really promising On a more oh macro level, how can you measure brian activity • There are many imaging techniques • Before even EEG we had techniques like those Penfield used • Neurosurgeons were usually a tad busy and had pesky operations to take care of… EEG • Oldest form of brain imaging CAT Scan • Computerized axial tomography PET scan • Positron emission tomography MRI • Magnetic Resonance Imaging So, how do you combine this stuff • • • • • • • • Easy (if expensive) Put a subject in an MRI or PET scanner scan Have her read a passage Do a distracter task scan Remember scan Some selected results • • • • • • Aplysia and habituation Feature detectors Face detectors Place cells HM KC conclusions • Look we KNOW memories are up there somewhere • However, we are a LONG way from figuring out where • We are also a long way from figuring out how • Even once we do, someone has to design the behavioural end of cognitive neuroscience