Psych Videos

I. Amnesia
The hippocampus is extremely important to the act of forming new memories. The hipocampus doesn't store memories, but it consolidates memories along with other parts of the brain. An electrical event in the hippocampus called Long Term Protentiation helps the hippocamus consolidate. When a drug that blocks LTP is put into a lab rat, the rat cannot remember anything. Clearly LTP and the hippocampus are two of the most important things involved in memory.

II. Learning as Synaptic Change
Learning involves elimination of older pathways to make new ones; This learning causes biological changes in the brain; cells grow new synaptic connections with other cells, you make new proeins and turn on genes that you did not previously use. Stimulating the same neural pathway for an extended period of time makes that neural pathway stronger; to do this, however, you must get rid of old pathways.

III. Locus of Learning
Penfield, through flawed experiments (no varification of data), determined that memory was stored in the temporal lobe; he would stimulate a part of the brain, disrupting that section's normal functions, and poking around until the patient felt a sensation. Another scientist, Lashley, proved Penfield's theory wrong, discovering through the removal of bits of a rat's brain, that memory is stored all over the cortex.