Learning and Memory

Learning and Memory

Lisa Taylor

 University of Phoenix

         Learning and Memory

If a person were to try and explain what they experience when learning something new, memory would be in part of their explanation. Learning and memory are perfectly paired. Without learning, there can be no memories. When a person learns something new, they store this learned data into their memory, whether long term or short term. It goes without saying that learning and memory both take place in the brain.

It is important that that a person keep their brain functioning properly by insuring the proper stimulation, and by continuously learning new things. The ability to learn and to memorize what has been learned stems from different areas of the brain. The brain is the central part of a person’s learning and memorizing. The brain is also the main part of a person’s neuroanatomy.

Neuroanatomy and Neural Processes

Learning can be defined as how experience changes the brain (Pinel, 2009). Learning is a dynamic of many parts of the brain functioning and working together, which will allow a person to be stimulated by the sense and the act. To describe it on a microscopic parallel, it is a multitude of chemical reactions and relays messaged between nerve cells. The communication allows cells to be stimulated act and react, either independently or as a group. It creates a platform of what is learned. It is a biochemical structure, but requires the physical energy of the brain and the body as well (ipodcast).

Learning can be categorized in a few different sets, sensory, and long and short term memory. A process of absorbing sensory information and linking it to a number of other sensory data, information, and memories will structure a point or element, which can be defined as a learned objective; is sensory memory. There are four areas of the brain that play a pivotal role in sensory information. The thalamus interprets sensory data and information, along with the neocortex, amygdala and hippocampus, which works collectively to create sensory memory (Pinel, 2009).

As sensory memory is constructed, involvement of the amygdala is minimized. The hippocampus has a vital role in the creation of short term memory. The pre-frontal lobe of the brain becomes extremely stimulated with the formation of short term memory. Research has taught us that short term memory is a property of the front of the brain. Visual information is a process of the back part of the brain (Wilkins, 2012).

 Short term memories can evolve into long term memories by a method recognized as memory consolidation or rehearsal. Consolidation of the hippocampus is shared with the amygdala, and it enables the cortex to develop the temporary neurological associations into fixed ones through the discharge of proteins that develop around often used synapses. Consolidation can often be thought of as an intricate filing system structured by connections of neurons in the brain (Salzwedel). It can take a number of years for the consolidation process to develop for a single memory. Sleeping can be a big help, as much of the information a person absorbs in a day will only be stored and stocked when they are no longer absorbing it.

Neural Process Related to Memory

Learning and memory work together hand in hand, once a person learns something it is stored in their memory whether it is in the long term memory or the short term memory. The brain is a very complex organ “Memory deals with how the experiences that have changed the brain are stored and subsequently reactivated” (Pinel, 2009). Information is usually stored in the short term memory first until it is determined if the information will be needed longer, then it is placed in long term memory which is called memory consolidation. Memory consolidation is the transfer of information from short term memory to long term memory.

 In long term memory there are conscious memories which are referred to as explicit memories. Explicit memories can be broken down into two categories semantic and episodic memory. “Semantic memories are explicit memories for general facts or information, whereas episodic memories are explicit memories for the particular events or experiences in one’s life” (Pinel, 2009). There are also unconscious memories that are referred to as implicit. Implicit is the procedural and priming memory which remembers how to do things. An example of explicit memories would be a memory would be the memory of first meeting someone. An example of an implicit memory would be a person singing a song that they didn’t know they knew.

Anatomical structures that are studied in the brain are neuroanatomy. The medial temporal lobe structure is included in neuroanatomy of memory and is important to the declarative memory. The structures are the “hippocampus, including the dentate gyrus and subicular complex, and adjacent cortical areas that are anatomically related to the hippocampus, especially the entorhinal, perirhinal, and parahippocampel cortices” (Zola, Morgan Squire 1993).  The hippocampus is an important or critical structure. If the hippocampus is injured it can cause “clinically significant and long lasting memory impairment” (Zola, Morgan Squire 1993).

The components that are essential to the formation of long term declarative memory are the medial temporal lobe structures and medial thalamus. This system is used for a certain amount of time after learning. While slowly developing permanent memory is stored in another placed this is believed to be the neocortex (Zola, Morgan Squire 1993). Declarative memory is dependent on the communication between the neocortex and the structure, while there are other skills and habits that depend on the neocortex and the neostriatum.

Learning and Memory Function

Learning and memory share in a relationship that is both intricate and evidential; the focus being the neuroplastic mechanisms that are involved in the fundamental bases of learning and memory. This discussion, however, cannot be had unless the mention of Hebb’s modern thinking is given. Hebb hypothesized that enduring the changes in efficiency of the synaptic transmission are the neural basis of learning and memory. Eventually this hypothesis was validated in 1973, when Bliss and Lomo proved that there is indeed a facilitation of synaptic transmission and this was shown after high frequency electrical stimulation was applied to presynaptic neurons (Pinel, 2009). Thus, a name for Hebb’s hypothesis came about as, long-term potentiation.

Long-term potentiation has since been proven through the use of many different species in the lab. The most frequently used species in this testing is the rat and more specifically it’s hippocampus. Through these tests it has been discovered that long-term potentiation has two key properties. First, that long-term potentiation can last for as long as several months after multiple stimulations (Pinel, 2009). Secondly, long-term potentiation only develops if the firing of the presynaptic neuron is followed by the firing of the postsynaptic neuron; both have to fire because long-term potentiation cannot exist if one fires without the other. This information has all been very intricate, but there is evidential proof that proves to be easier to understand; let’s take a look at some examples.