OPTIONAL BACKGROUND READING (OVERVIEW):.

Parkin, A. (2001) The structure and mechanism of memory. In In B. Rapp (Ed.), The Handbook of Cognitive Neuropsychology: What Deficits Reveal About the Human Mind, Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

REQUIRED READING

1.  Knowlton, B. J., & Squire, L. R. (1995). Remembering and Knowing: Two different expressions of declarative memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 21(3), 699-710.

2.  Vargha-Khadem, F., Gadian, D. G., Watkins, K. E., Connelly, A., Van Paesschen, W., & Mishkin, M. (1997). Differential effects of early hippocampal pathology on episodic and semantic memory. Science, 277, 376-380. (available through Columbia e-journals)

3.  Mishkin, M., Vargha-Khadem, F., & Gadian, D. G. (1998). Amnesia and the organization of the hippocampal system. Hippocampus, 8, 212-216. (available through Columbia e-journals)

4.  Graham, K. S., Simons, J. S., Pratt, K. H., Patterson, K., & Hodges, J. R. (2000). Insights from semantic dementia on the relationship between episodic and semantic memory. Neuropsychologia, 38, 313-324. (available through Columbia e-journals)
 

OPTIONAL (RECOMMENDED) COMMENTARIES ON VARGHA-KHADEM (1997) AND UPDATE:

a) Tulving, E., & Markowitsch, H. J. (1998). Episodic and declarative memory: Role of the hippocampus. Hippocampus, 8, 198-204.

b) Squire, L. R., & Zola, S. M. (1998). Episodic memory, semantic memory and amnesia. Hippocampus, 8, 205-211.

c) Gadian, D. G., Aicardi, J., Watkins, K. E., Porter, D. A., Mishkin, M. & Vargha-Khadem, F. (2000). Developmental amensia associated with early hypoxic-ischaemic injury. Brain, 123, 499-507.

QUESTION FOR CRITICAL THINKING:

Imagine you are the attending neuropsychologist at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and are discussing the following three patients at weekly rounds. Patient SR is a 24-year old male who suffered hypoxia during birth when his umbilical cord became wrapped around his neck. Patient RZ is an 81-year old female who was recently diagnosed with temporal lobe variant of Pick's disease. Patient JM is a 31-year old with Korsakoff's amnesia due to excessive alcohol use combined with poor nutrition. Based on the studies you read (and additional resources if you wish), first describe what brain areas are going to be primarily affected by these different disorders. Then, predict from the point of view of each of the papers, whether episodic or semantic memory would be more impaired, or whether they would be equally impaired. How would each of these patients perform on a Remember/Know recognition task relative to education and age-matched controls? Be sure to give support your predictions with direct evidence from the papers you read.

WEBSITE ENTERTAINMENT!:

TONS! of fun with memoryÖ (games, web lectures, demos - all from San Francisco's hands-on science center, the Exploratorium!) http://www.exploratorium.edu/memory/index.html

ADDITIONAL READINGS IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE TOPIC:

Willingham, D. B. (1997). Systems of memory in the human brain. Neuron, 18, 5-8. (Overview of memory systems)

Knowlton, B. J., Mangels, J. A., & Squire, L. R. (1996). A neostriatal habit learning system in humans. Science, 273, 1399-1402.

Fleischman, D. A., Vaidya, C. J., Lange, K. L., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (1997). A dissociation between perceptual explicit and implicit memory processes. Brain and Cognition, 35, 42-47.

Keane, M. M., Gabrieli, J. D., Monti, L. A., Fleischman, D. A., Cantor, J. M., & Noland,, J. S. (1997). Intact and impaired conceptual memory processes in amnesia. Neuropsychology, 11(1), 59-69.

Reed, J. M., & Squire, L. R. (1997). Impaired recognition memory in patients with lesions limited to the hippocampal formation. Behavioral Neuroscience, 111(4), 667-675.

Sprengelmeyer, R., Canavan, A. G., Lange, H. W., & Homberg, V. (1995). Associative learning in degenerative neostriatal disorders: contrasts in explicit and implicit remembering between Parkinsonís and Huntingtonís diseases. Movement Disorders, 10(1), 51-65.