--- module: 099-01 language: en chapter: 99 title: "Learning, Development, Cognition, Stress, and Behaviour Change" module_title: "Learning, memory, and their biological foundations" source_sha256: 8c9c4ef19fad7b7123b151b4e9435c888898984c746d7044c4892a74b59ccb9e --- # Learning, memory, and biology ## Learning and memory are not one faculty ### Learning: durable change produced by experience ### Memory: encode, store, stabilise, retrieve ### Skill acquired without recalling the practice ### Separate attention, encoding, retention, retrieval #### Not every failure is loss of memory ## Non-associative learning ### Habituation to repeated inconsequential stimuli #### Not sensory fatigue: recovers with time or novelty ### Sensitisation after strong or important stimuli #### Generalises: pain, vigilance, startle ### Short term: transmitter release and excitability ### Long term: gene expression, structural remodelling ## Classical and fear conditioning ### Neutral cue predicts a meaningful event #### Contingency, not mere temporal pairing ### Extinction is new inhibitory learning #### Spontaneous recovery, renewal, reinstatement ### Amygdala assigns threat value ### Hippocampus represents context and relationships ### Prefrontal regulates by safety and goals ### Exposure uses prediction error #### Tolerable engagement, varied safe contexts ## Operant and observational learning ### Reinforcement increases, punishment decreases #### Positive adds, negative removes ### Negative reinforcement maintains avoidance #### Blocks corrective learning, long-term disability ### Immediate, reliable, valued consequences dominate ### Continuous reinforcement: fast acquisition and extinction ### Intermittent reinforcement makes behaviour persist #### Checking, gambling, digital rewards ### Shaping reinforces successive approximations #### Small steps build self-efficacy ### Modelling: attention, retention, reproduction, motivation #### Feasible demonstration, corrective feedback ## Working memory and memory systems ### Working memory holds and manipulates limited information ### Executive control protects goals, updates, switches ### Capacity falls with distraction, sleep loss, pain, anxiety #### Nonadherence may be cognitive overload ### Chunking reduces burden, does not transfer to novices ### Declarative: episodic and semantic ### Nondeclarative: skills, habits, priming, conditioning ### Hippocampal networks form new declarative memories #### Not the permanent repository ### Basal ganglia and cerebellum: habits, skills, timing ## Encoding and consolidation ### Active attention, elaboration, organisation, generation ### Retrieval practice beats passive rereading ### Spacing beats massed repetition ### Interleaving improves discrimination but feels harder ### Fluency of rereading is a poor measure ### Synaptic consolidation over minutes to hours #### Receptor trafficking, kinases, protein synthesis ### Systems consolidation reorganises networks over time ### Sleep coordinates hippocampal and cortical activity #### Also restores attention and emotion regulation ## Synaptic plasticity and neuromodulation ### Long-term potentiation raises synaptic effectiveness #### Coincident depolarisation and glutamate #### Calcium entry through NMDA receptors #### AMPA receptor insertion or modification ### Long-term depression weakens synapses, prevents saturation ### Dopamine: prediction error, motivational significance ### Acetylcholine: attention and cortical learning ### Noradrenaline: arousal and uncertainty ### Stress hormones strengthen central emotional features #### But impair flexible contextual recall ### Pain, addiction, fear, habits are also learned change ## Retrieval and forgetting ### Retrieval is reconstructive #### Context, expectation, emotion fill the gaps ### Confidence and accuracy imperfectly related ### Suggestive questions and imagination alter recall ### Reconsolidation has boundary conditions ### Forgetting: decay, interference, retrieval failure ### Proactive and retroactive interference ### Vary examples, recall as in future use ## Disorders, transfer, and feedback ### Medial temporal damage impairs new episodic learning #### Span, remote knowledge, skill may be spared ### Frontal dysfunction impairs strategy, source monitoring ### Delirium makes memory testing unreliable ### Memory complaint needs history, function, course ### Expertise needs structure, retrieval, varied use ### Feedback: timely, specific, controllable process ### Excess threat narrows attention, invites concealment ### Biological and behavioural levels are complementary