lecture 6

• Limbic system


  System with various structures involved in learning, memory, emotion and motivation
• Structures of the limbic system

  • Hypothalamus
  • Amygdala
  • Thalamus
  • Hippocampus
• Amygdala


  • Role in memory and emotional states
  • Helps you feel fear as well as recognise it in others
• Hippocampus


  • Located in temporal lobe
  • Involved in learning, memory and spatial negotiation
• Limbic system


  Influences endocrine and autonomic nervous systems
• Limbic system


  Interconnected with nucleus accumbens
• Nucleus accumbens


  • Part of mesolimbic pathway also referred to as dopaminergic pathway
  • Located in basal forebrain (subcortical nuclei collectively referred to as basal ganglia)
• Nucleus accumbens


  • Neural interface between motivation and behaviour
  • Drives reward or pleasure seeking behaviour
  • Strongly associated with addiction
• Episodic memories


  • Usual type of memory; what you had for breakfast, the visit with friends
  • Require details at retrieval to be classified as episodic (autobiographical episode, personal knowledge)
• Procedural memory


  Memory of how to perform a task
• Semantic memory


  Knowledge not tied to context of acquisition, located in inferior parietal cortex
• Hippocampus


  Role in semantic memory is time limited
• Short-term memory


  Less than 30 seconds
• Long-term memory


  Longer than 30 seconds
• Explicit memory


  What you remember unconsciously and effortlessly
• Implicit memory


  Memories that require conscious retrieval
• The case of HM...