Memory Videos

The Brain #16-Locus of Learning & Memory
The first memory video that I watched was The Locus of Remembering and Learning. The main question that researchers really pondered was where the learning and memory actually takes place. At the National Institute of Mental Health researchers did experiments on this.I found this video interesting because it gave me knowledge I needed to know about the history of researcher's ideas. Dr. Penfield discovered several new operations and used these operations to help discover memory and mostly it's location. His hypothesis was that memory was located in just the hypothesis lobe and no places in the brain. He stimulated the brain that he was going to operate on and then opened the cortex. From this his hypothesis was proven correct, even though it was later proved false. He was wrong because memories are stored in many places not just one. There's no one special case that holds all the memories.

The Brain #17-Learning as Synamptic Change
The second video I watched was Learning as Synamptic Change. Researchers wanted to know how structural changes are involved in learning. Experiments were created at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. They used lab rats to study their growing brains. Their experiment encourages the creation of neuronal connections it also eliminates other connections until passages are more affective in transmitting messages. There is a myth that after the age of 25 the human brain loses 1,000 brain cells a day. This is saying that when a person gets older and older, they are losing brain cells so they are getting less intelligent each day. With age, cells are lost but its more the individual that is making better use of what they have. The New Ball Game was an experiment that monitored rats brains when stimulated. Cells were seen before and after the stimulation. They also studied snails to learn at the cellular level. This was an interesting video because it showed all the cool ways they research in animals and other things.


The Mind #10-Life Without Memory: The Case of Clive Wearing (Part 1)
The last movie I watched was Life Without Memory: The Case of Clive Wearing. At first I figured this was going to be a long boring thirty minute video, but gave it a chance and surprisingly enough it was pretty intriguing. Clive Wearing can't make any new memories because he has the disease viral encephalitis. There is damage in his frontal lobes located in the hippocampus. So this is very frustrating and confusing for him not being able to make any new memories at all. Also, this must be even harder on his family and close friends. Clive remembers his family members, because he knew this information before which is very good. He writes down every single detail and everyone he sees during the day or else he will forget and will be living in more confusion than he already is. It's really impressive to me, that Clive can still play the piano and have so much musical talent. It shows how these skills are kept in a different part of the brain. This video was actually almost depressing, because it made me realize how lucky I am to have my own memory in such good shape.