Presentation on Neuroscience and biology of Memory

1. Neuroscience of Memory
Dr.Suresh Kumar Murugesan PhD
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2. About us
● Dr.Suresh Kumar Murugesan Phd and
Ms.Jothi are the founders of Yellow Pond
counselling Centre
● They are positive psychologist striving for
the excellence in ethir field
● Both had acted as resource persons for many
training and webinars
● They are also life members of Tamil Nadu
Career Counsellors Association and Tamil
nadu Counsellors and Psychotherapist
Association
● They have developed few Psychometric tools
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3. Disclaimer
● This presentation is prepared
for learning purpose only and
anyone can use the content.
● All the images used in this
presentation are taken from
google image search.
● Due acknowledgement was
given to all the material
collected from the various
sources.
● Any name or reference is not
included kindly bring it to the
notice of the presenter for
inclusion.
● Email -
sureshkumar800@yahoo.com
Thank you
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4. Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the study of the brain and its impact on behavior, emotion and
cognitive functions of an individual.
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5. Memory
Memory is today defined in psychology as the faculty of encoding, storing, and
retrieving information (Squire, 2009).
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8. Approaches to
memory

9. Approaches to Memory Traces and
Brain
● Imaging
● Brain lesions
● Brain disease and injury

10. Imaging
Modern imaging techniques like fMRI (functional magnetic
resonance imaging) or PET (positron emission tomography)
allows one to “see” areas of the brain that are active during
specific brain tasks. If a subject is placed in an fMRI scanner
and given a memory test, one can determine what areas of the
brain are active, and that activity presumably is related to where
in the brain the memory is processed and/or stored.

11. Brain lesions
In this experimental procedure, small parts of the brains of mice or rats are
surgically removed or chemically inactivated and the animals are
systematically examined to determine whether the lesion affected any memory
system.

12. Brain disease and injury
Here scientists take advantage of individuals who have
had unfortunate brain injuries, for example, through stroke
or through a brain tumor in a specific area of the brain. If
one finds a memory deficit in the patient, it is likely that the
region of the brain that was injured is involved in that
memory.

13. Brain and
Memory
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16. Sensory Memory
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18. Working Memory
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23. Long term Memory
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24. Professor Hiroshi Imamizu at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology,
and his collaborators succeeded for the first time in visualizing the acquisition processes of short-
and long-term motor memory in different areas of the brain. The study demonstrated that the
shortest memories are associated with the broad fronto-parietal network, intermediate memories are
associated with specific regions in the parietal lobe, and the longest memories are associated with
the cerebellum. This result was obtained by combination of computational modelling and a
technique for measurement of brain activity (functional magnetic resonance imaging: fMRI).
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28. Explicit Memory
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29. Explicit memory
There are three areas of the brain involved in explicit
memory:
1. the hippocampus,
2. the neo-cortex and
3. the amygdala.
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31. Hippocampus
● The hippocampus, located in the brain's temporal
lobe, is where episodic memories are formed and
indexed for later access.
● Episodic memories are autobiographical memories
from specific events in our lives, like the coffee we
had with a friend last week.
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32. Neocortex
● The neocortex is the largest part of the cerebral
cortex, the sheet of neural tissue that forms the
outside surface of the brain, distinctive in higher
mammals for its wrinkly appearance.
● In humans, the neocortex is involved in higher
functions such as sensory perception, generation of
motor commands, spatial reasoning and language.
● Over time, information from certain memories that
are temporarily stored in the hippocampus can be
transferred to the neocortex as general knowledge –
things like knowing that coffee provides a pick-me-
up.
● Researchers think this transfer from hippocampus to
neocortex happens as we sleep.
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33. Amygdala
● The amygdala, an almond-shaped structure in the
brain’s temporal lobe, attaches emotional
significance to memories.
● This is particularly important because strong
emotional memories (e.g. those associated with
shame, joy, love or grief) are difficult to forget.
● The permanence of these memories suggests that
interactions between the amygdala, hippocampus
and neocortex are crucial in determining the
‘stability’ of a memory – that is, how effectively it is
retained over time.
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34. Implicit memory
There are two areas of the brain involved in implicit
memory:
1. the basal ganglia and
2. the cerebellum.
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35. Basal ganglia
The basal ganglia are structures lying deep within the
brain and are involved in a wide range of processes such
as emotion, reward processing, habit formation,
movement and learning. They are particularly involved in
co-ordinating sequences of motor activity, as would be
needed when playing a musical instrument, dancing or
playing basketball. The basal ganglia are the regions most
affected by Parkinson’s disease. This is evident in the
impaired movements of Parkinson’s patients
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36. Cerebellum The cerebellum, a separate structure located at the rear base of
the brain, is most important in fine motor control, the type that
allows us to use chopsticks or press that piano key a fraction
more softly. A well-studied example of cerebellar motor learning
is the vestibulo-ocular reflex, which lets us maintain our gaze on
a location as we rotate our heads.
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37. Working memory
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38. Prefrontal cortex
● The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the part of the neocortex that
sits at the very front of the brain.
● It is the most recent addition to the mammalian brain, and is
involved in many complex cognitive functions.
● Human neuroimaging studies using magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) machines show that when people perform
tasks requiring them to hold information in their short-term
memory, such as the location of a flash of light, the PFC
becomes active.
● There also seems to be a functional separation between left
and right sides of the PFC: the left is more involved in
verbal working memory while the right is more active in
spatial working memory, such as remembering where the
flash of light occurred.
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39. Memory and
Neurotransmitters
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40. Memory and
neuron
Already in the 19th century, the recognition that the number of
neurons in the brain doesn’t increase significantly after reaching
adulthood suggested to early neuroanatomists that memories
aren’t primarily stored through the creation of neurons, but rather
through the strengthening of connections between neurons
(Ramón y Cajal, 1894).

41. Memory and LTP
In 1966, the breakthrough discovery of long-term potentiation (LTP) suggested
that memories may be encoded in the strength of synaptic signals between
neurons (Bliss and Lømo, 1973).

44. References 1. https://nba.uth.tmc.edu/neuroscience/m/s4/chapter07.html
2. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.0252
3/full
3. https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain-basics/memory/where-are-
memories-stored
4. https://news.mit.edu/2017/neuroscientists-identify-brain-
circuit-necessary-memory-formation-0406
5. https://blog.cognifit.com/sensory-memory/
6. https://theconversation.com/were-capable-of-infinite-
memory-but-where-in-the-brain-is-it-stored-and-what-parts-
help-retrieve-it-63386
7. https://conductscience.com/maze/short-term-memory/
8. https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/articles/a_00434.html
9. https://gohighbrow.com/the-brain-and-memory/
10. https://www.natap.org/2019/HIV/040919_01.htm
11. https://neurosciencenews.com/working-memory-prefrontal-
cortex-2108/
12. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0040
1/full