brain and damage, implicit+ explicit

• Types of long term memory

  • Explicit Memory
  • Implicit Memory
• Explicit Memory


  Information that can be consciously or intentionally retrieved and stated. Things that you can recall and recognise.
• Semantic Memory


  Facts and knowledge that you have learned about the world
• Episodic Memory


  Personally experienced events. What you can remember about your life. Involve a time and a place that you have experienced and the sensory details that were available to you.
• Implicit Memory


  Memory that you do not have to consciously or even intentionally retrieve. The retrieval is usually effortless, habitual, or reflexive.
• Procedural Memory


  Learned motor skills and muscle memory
• Classically Conditioned Memory


  Conditioned responses you have associated with sensory stimuli. They are reflexive.
• Brain Areas Involved in Long Term Implicit and Explicit Memory

  • Hippocampus
  • Amygdala
  • Cerebellum
  • Neocortex
  • Basal Ganglia
• Hippocampus


  Location: Medial (middle) temporal lobe, just above the ear. Structure: Tubular, Curved. Functions: Responsible for the formation and encoding of new semantic and episodic memories. It also helps ensure that they are neurologically stable and long lasting explicit long term memories. Consolidation: The neurobiological process of making newly formed memory stable and enduring following a learning experience.
• Amygdala


  Location: Connected to and just above the hippocampus in the medial temporal lobe. Structure: Small and rounded, Approximately 1.5cm long, Directly connected to many different brain structures. Function: Encodes and consolidates the emotional content of memories (occurs in episodic memories). Enables recognition and learned responses to emotional cues (detection of threats and retrieval of learned responses). Helps form implicit aspects of emotional memory by associating emotions (like fear or anger) with stimuli from the environment. This forms classically conditioned responses which are triggered unconsciously. More likely to form stronger long term memories during high emotional arousal due to high levels of noradrenaline in amygdala when memory is formed, which signals the hippocampus to record more details. Flashbulb memories: Vivid, highly detailed memories formed during a significant emotionally arousing event.
• Cerebellum


  Location: In the hindbrain, at base and rear of brain. Structure: Cauliflower shaped mass of densely packed neurons. Functions: Involved in the formation and temporary storage of implicit, procedural memories relating to coordinated, voluntary movements as well as classically conditioned responses. It works with the hippocampus to form implicit spatial memories on how to navigate through known locations. It is the permanent storage site for simple conditioned reflexes, but sends all other implicit motor information to be stored as long term memories in the neocortex.
• Neocortex


  Location: The outer layer of the cerebrum, Accounts for 90% of the cerebral cortex. Structure: Wrinkled structure, Divided into two hemispheres and four lobes, Connected to nearly all parts of the brain, therefore taking part in almost all things we consciously think, feel and do. Functions: Interacts with the hippocampus in the formation, consolidation, storage and retrieval of long term explicit memory. After consolidation has occurred, memory stored in the neocortex gradually becomes independent of the hippocampus. This enables the retrieval of explicit memories even if the hippocampus is damaged. Semantic and episodic memory is stored throughout the lobes of the neocortex.
• Basal Ganglia


  Location: Lies deep in the centre of the brain beneath the cortex, Connections of neocortex, limbic system and other brain areas. Structure: A network of five pairs of nuclei that are involved in the fine tuning of voluntary motor movements. Functions: Formation and retrieval of implicit memory tasks requiring voluntary motor skills. Also involved in habituation, which is the learning of not responding to a stimulus that occurs repeatedly.
• Brain Region and Function in Memory

  • Amygdala - Encoding and consolidation of emotional content, Retrieves emotional content of classical conditioning
  • Hippocampus - Encodes explicit memory, Some ability to retrieve explicit memory
  • Cerebellum - Encoding and storage of implicit memory
  • Neocortex - Consolidation, formation, storage and retrieval of long term memory
  • Basal Ganglia - Formation and retrieval of implicit memory tasks requiring voluntary motor skills
• Type(s) of Long Term Memory for each Brain Region

  • Amygdala - Episodic memories, Classically conditioned memories (implicit)
  • Hippocampus - Semantic and episodic memory (explicit)
  • Cerebellum - Procedural memory (implicit)
  • Neocortex - Explicit memory
  • Basal Ganglia - Procedural memory (implicit)
• Effects of Damage to Brain Areas

  • Hippocampus - Impaired/absent consolidation of explicit (declarative) memory, Partially affected retrieval of previously consolidated long term memories, Relatively unaffected short term memory, implicit procedural memories, classically conditioned blink reflex
  • Amygdala - Impaired/absent ability to encode/recall the emotional qualities of events, Impaired ability to recognise facial expressions of emotions, Unable to acquire/recall a classically conditioned fear response, Relatively unaffected short term memory, procedural memories, memory of facts, memory of non emotional details of personally experienced events
  • Neocortex - Impaired retrieval process, Trauma to different areas results in different effects on memory, Surgical removal results in loss of memories stored in that area, Unaffected consolidation
  • Cerebellum - Impaired/absent classically conditioned motor responses, Impaired ability to organise and execute exploration behaviours, Unaffected explicit memories