PSYC 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 28: Long-Term Potentiation, Nmda Receptor, Synaptic Plasticity

• School: UConn
• Department: Psychological Sciences
• Course: PSYC 1100
• Professor: Harvey Swadlow

Document Summary

Engram-- physical change in the brain due to memories. Mass action: engram is distributed throughout the cortex, not just in one place. Some implicit memories are stored in one place, the cerebellum. The hebb rule (1949): learning involves strengthening of a synapse that"s repeatedly active when the postsynaptic neuron fires. Synaptic plasticity: synapses are molded as you learn. Long term potentiation (ltp)-- strengthening of synapses. Increase in excitability of a neuron to a certain input by repeated high frequency of the input. Associative long term potentiation-- stimulation of the weak and strong synapses at the same time strengthens the weak synapses, involves nmda receptor. A tone won"t make you blink, but if air is blown in your eye repeatedly with a tone, eventually you will blink to just the tone. Why we don"t have explicit memories before the age of three. Why we don"t remember all of our dreams.