Memory
DR Ayatulla Elsayed
Assistant lecturer at Neuropsychiatry
department
Benha university hospitals
Definition
• Memory is the information processing and cognitive ability to encode, store and retrieve information.
• Functions of memory:
• Encoding: is the active process or putting information into memory (learning).
• Storage: is the process of holding encoded information in memory until the time of retrieval.
• Retrieval: is the process of using the information, which is stored in memory (remembering).
• It is based on:
• Neurotransmitters (Acetyl choleric mainly).
• Formation of new circuits.
• Protein synthesis involvement of RNA, DNA.
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Types and levels of memory:
• A- Sensory memory: B- Short term memory: C- Long term
memory:
• Hold large amounts of • Limited capacity (7±2 bits pf information). • Unlimited capacity.
information.
• Limited duration (15-20 seconds). • Very long duration.
• Registered at the sense receptors
• Limited storage. • Permanent but subjected
(auditory, visual etc ..).
to distortion or replacement.
• Encoding = we have to pay attention to the
• Very brief period (visual 1/2
information processed. • Information stored in
second and auditory 3 seconds).
organized fashion
• Forgetting occur by decay or displacement.
• It is based on electrical changes.
• Information in STM could pass to long term
memory LTM by rehearsal or consolidation.
• It is based on chemical changes and
reverberating circuits.
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Causes of forgetting:
1- Interference:
It can be retroactive or proactive.
a. Retroactive interference occurs, when previously learned material cannot be retrieved because it is
inhibited or blocked by material or information learned later.
b. Proactive interference occurs when information cannot be retrieved because it is inhibited or
blocked by material learned earlier. Retroactive interference is generally more difficult to retrieval than
proactive interference.
2. Repression: It is sometimes called motivated forgetting. It occurs when anxiety producing, or
traumatic events are forced into the unconscious level of the mind (Repression is a concept introduced
by Freud).
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3- Failure of (encoding):
a- Personal factors:
• Intelligence, attention and motivation.
• Physiological state.
• Psychological state.
• Past experiences.
b- Learned material and learning strategy:
• Meaningful more than meaningless material.
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4- Failure of registration: Consolidation and storage of the learned materials. This may be
due to changes in molecular structures in the areas implicated such as hippocampus and limbic
system. It may be due to:
• Lesion or disease in these areas.
• Being under the effect of narcotics.
• Head trauma
• Disease affect protein synthesis or neurotransmitters
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5- Failure of retrieval: It depends on
• The subject's emotional and physical state.
• The subject's interest and psychological state.
• Being under the effect of drugs.
• Anatomical areas involved in memory:
• Hippocampus.
• Amygdala.
• Temporal lobe.
• Medial frontal gyrus.
• Mammillary bodies.
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Disorders of Memory
A- Amnesia: Partial or total inability to recall past experience.
1. Psychogenic amnesias:
a. Anxiety amnesia: Anxiety tends to impair perception, concentration, understanding and consequently
memory.
Depressed and anxious patients frequently complain of loss of memory.
b. Dissociative or hysterical amnesia: There is loss of memory and identity, but personality remains intact. It is
often accompanied by a fugue state it is usually circumscribed, related to the conflicting situation.
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2. Organic amnesias:
• Transient global amnesia occurred due transient ischemic cerebral attaches (TICA).
• Retrograde and anterograde amnesia:
Retrograde amnesia: amnesia for events occurs before a point of him.
Anterograde amnesia: amnesia for events occurs after a point of him.
They may occur in head injuries due to failure of encoding storage and registration of information at the
time around trauma.
• Amnesia for recent events occurs early in dementia.
• Amnesia for recent and remote events in advanced cases of dementia.
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B- Paramnesia:
• Retrospective falsification:
Memories are modified to be consistent with morbid mood and beliefs.
It occurs in depression and schizophrenia.
Memory becomes unintendedly distorted by being affected by a person's mood thinking and cognitive state.
• Confabulations:
False descriptions of past fictitious events.
It is unconscious filling of gaps in memory by imagined or untrue experiences that people believes but have no
basis in facts.
it is usually associated with organic pathology.
They occur in organic brain syndrome.
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C- Distortion of Recognition:
• Illusion of familiarity (Deja vu):
is a sense or feeling of having experienced the current novel situation before.
It is illusion of visual recognition in which a new situation is in correctly regarded as a repetition of
a previous memory.
• Illusion of unfamiliarity (Jamàis vu):
is a sense or feeling of not having experiences the situation.
It is false feeling of unfamiliarity with a real situation that a person has experienced.
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