Summer SAVY, Session 3 Day 3, “Neurobiology of Learning and Memory” (7th-8th)
We started the day on a slightly different note from yesterday afternoon when we were discussing the topic of memory. The new topic about the birth of the nervous system gave our brain a break so that we could focus better when coming back to the memory topic (this is supported by scientific evidence). We got to see a brief overview of how a cell develops into a baby. The nervous system begins to form at about week 3 during fetal development – very early! At around week 3, the precursor of our nervous system is only a disc structure in the embryo, so we were curious as to how a flat, disc structure develops into a brain, a spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system. We had a little help to envision this process – Play-Doh! We used Play-Doh to simulate the formation of the neural tube (the nervous system). Our students first made a pie out of the Play-Doh, created a central line (the “primitive streak”) across the pie, folded the middle of the pie along the central line, and separated the folded part (a tube) from the rest of the pie to build a neural tube! One end of the neural tube becomes the brain, and the rest of the tube becomes our spinal cord. The top of the neural tube “sheds”, and the shedding (the neural crest cells) becomes our peripheral nervous system.
After this activity, we returned to the topic of memory. Our students first had a review by sharing their understanding of key memory concepts and corresponding examples. Then, we picked up where we left off yesterday – implicit/unconscious memory. After that, we moved on to explicit/conscious memory, consisting of semantic and episodic memory. We began with semantic memory, which refers not only to facts stored in our brain but also to the logical relations between these facts. Our students had a first-hand experience accessing their semantic memory by answering a few trivia questions, such as “Who first discovered gravity?”. Then, to understand the “logical relations” between facts, our students did a seemingly mysterious activity. They listened to a paragraph from Harry Potter and were told to remember the meaning of the paragraph. It was suggested that they NOT take notes while listening. Then, 2 minutes after listening to the paragraph, our students were invited to reproduce the paragraph on paper, trying to use the exact words from the audio clip but also encouraged to use their own words if they couldn’t remember the exact ones. It turned out that many, if not all, of our students activated the “logical relations” in their semantic memory. Specifically, they were able to use words that did not come up at all in the original test but were of similar meaning to words in the original text, such as “illumination” for “sun lighting up” and “video game” for “computer game”. It shows that our students had those logical relations (synonyms) stored in their brains all along and successfully retrieved (found and used) them!
After lunch, we moved on to another type of semantic memory – episodic memory. It refers to events that happened to us and involves not only perceptual memory and typically numerous vivid details, but also includes a sense of self. We read some examples together, but the most fun part of it was when each of us shared our very first childhood memories. All of our students shared their very first childhood memories and also listened attentively to others’ stories.
Then we went to a computer lab to work on a group project that helps us understand the underlying neurobiological structure of memory better. We have four groups in the class, and each of them was assigned one of the topics: 1. The case of Patient “H.M.” (a famous amnesic patient who contributed tremendously to the research of the brain, especially the region responsible for memory); 2. The case of Clive Wearing (also an amnesic patient), 3. Definition, symptoms, and causes of Alzheimer’s disease; 4. Treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Our students will present their group projects first thing tomorrow morning!