Activity 5.3

Watch Saving Hubble Update, Gangster Birds, How Memory Works on PBS. See more from NOVA scienceNOW.

I chose the NOVA video "How Memory Works." I remember when H.M. died and at the time I was taking Physiological Psychology. My professor was a quirky soon-to-be-retired type and made us all watch the streaming of H.M.'s brain being sliced into tons of thin slices. I recall, at the time, freaking out that we were wasting a class as it was a rather difficult class. I think, after watching this video, I understand why he was so fascinated with H.M.'s brain.

This video is about long term memory. It starts with the anecdotal story of H.M. who struggled with severe epilepsy and because of this had his hippocampus removed. From H.M. we learned the importance of the hippocampus in long term memory because once H.M.'s hippocampus was removed he no longer could store memories from after the surgery. However, it was also discovered that although H.M. might have no recollection of learning he could still apparently learn. Finally, the video discussed  current rat research which shows that if the animal is given a certain drug immediately after it makes a memory the rat will then forget that memory.

I made several connections and had one question in response to this video. The question I had deals with erasing the poor ratty's memory. Does the drug administered only affect the recently formed memory or can it delete other memories? Has research been conducted looking at the all the effects of this drug and its effects on memories? This erasure of memory also reminds me of the Radiolab I recently posted which also discusses the research on this topic. One thing that really drew me was when one of the doctors said that you have a "slightly different head than you had today" everyday. It reminded me of Vygotsky who said something very similar with human development. Finally, H.M. and the research conducted with H.M. brought to mind past research I have learned about dealing with split-brains. Sometimes when individuals have particularly bad seizures they will undergo surgery that separates part of the midline of their brain. This helps prevent the seizures from spreading all over the brain. Once this surgery is conducted all kinds of interesting research can then be conducted on the individual. For example, I recall learning about individuals who had this "split-brain" and would experience one of their hands doing something in which they never recalled having "asked" their brain to do.

Here is a Wikipedia link if you're interested about split-brains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain