Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 4, Intro to Neurobiology (5th-6th)
Dear SAVY families,
Today we continued to learn about components of the fascinating human memory system. This time, we got into the long-term memory, and specifically, the unconscious (procedural) and conscious (declarative) memory. For the unconscious, we saw the three levels of the mind proposed by Sigmund Freud and shared our own understanding of what it means to have an unconscious but working mind. Several examples of the unconscious were presented: motor memory, emotion memory, perceptual memory, and priming. It was very interesting for our students to see that there could be a big part of our mind working secretly behind us, without us knowing about its working (thus the unconscious), but it can have a great influence on our behaviors. For example, if you repeat the word “folk” three times and spell it out, and then you are asked what the white part of an egg is called, you will probably say yolk. It is not a good answer, and you may very well know the correct answer if your mind has not been “primed” or “tricked” by repeating “folk”. And this “priming” process happens without us knowing about it, and yet, it changes how we answer the question.
In terms of conscious memory, we first explored semantic memory. It contains not only facts but also our ability to make inferences. Our students answered many trivia questions, such as how many teeth a human adult has or whether sound travels faster in water or in the air, to tap the “fact” aspect of their semantic memory. For the “inference-making” aspect of semantic memory, our students listened to a short passage from Harry Potter, waited for 2 minutes, and then wrote down the meaning of the passage. It turned out that our brains decided to summarize and paraphrase many words in the original text and output the same or similar meaning using expressions that are more familiar to or comfortable with us.
After we had a good grasp of semantic memory, we began to learn about another crucial concept in conscious memory within the long-term memory category – episodic memory. This type of memory concerns events that happen to us, i.e., our very own experience. Our students did a very good job in an exercise that followed our discussion. They successfully distinguished between semantic and episodic memory for 10 events listed on the slide.
Later, we started to learn about the biological correlate of memory – the hippocampus. We saw videos showing its location in the brain and also discussed what would happen if hippocampus functions were impaired. As a matter of fact, when our students assembled their brain models yesterday, they were already handling the part of the hippocampus, and it was helpful that they looked back into the assembly guide to remind them what it looks like.
Then, it was time for our students to use their knowledge! We went into the computer lab to research 4 different topics, all related to memory: the case of Clive Wearing (a person who lost both long-term and short-term memories), the case of H.M. (a patient who lost his hippocampus in brain surgery, and helped scientists discovery the function of the hippocampus), definitions, symptoms, and causes of Alzheimer’s, and treatment of Alzheimer’s. With experience on working on their first project on Tuesday, our students were even more adept this time. All teams had a very clear division of roles and responsibilities and they were efficient in putting together their slides for presentation. After we were back in the classroom, three teams presented their projects with good information and educational videos. The remaining will be presented first thing tomorrow morning! They will talk about patient H.M., and there is so much to look forward to because this patient’s story is very moving and his contribution to science cannot be overstated!