Chapter 3 brain substrates

aplasia (look at diagrams)

Good for studying because

pattern of neurons are hard wired

they only have 20,000 neurons

neurons are large

gill withdrawl effect

touch the tail, siphon and gill, the gill contracts within the mantle, time to relax is measured

siphon - sensory neuron s - glutamate - motor neuron M - gill muscles

if you touch it every minute for so many minutes they retract less and less but it recovers quickly prob cause it is a mass trial

releases less glutamate as it happens, with every presentation, less and less NTs get released. The receptor is getting depressed.

habituation in aplasia

homosynaptic

involves only the synapses that were activated during the stimulus does not generalize to other ones.

long term = lasts longer than 10 minutes

exposure is spaced over days

Number of sensory neurons decreases

sensitization

if you shock instead of touch then it will retract for longer because it has become desensitized

causes release of serotonin from the inter modulatory neuron

hetero-synaptic, involves changes across several synapses

not stimulus specific

perceptual learning

input from each sense is relayed to a specialized sensory cortex

each neuron within the specialized cortex has a distinct receptive field

you can meausre the specific neuron by single cell recording

Ex: Showed neuron fired in animal when a tone went off between 0.7 and 3 kHz. it was tuned to 0.9 because that is where they had the most firing.

organized in a topographic map, things that do the same thing are organized close to each other

cortical plasticity: change in receptive fields of neurons of the sensory cortex due to development or experience

ex: 2 point discrimination test: touch finger with two pins participant says if they feel pin 1 or 2, test to see the smallest distance where participant is reliably correct. much better sensitivity in trained hand.

hippocampus

has place cells

contains a particular receptive field for a place that is familiar