Module name:Mechanisms of learning and Psychopathology Dissertation question -To what extent could the effects of hippocampal damage be explained in terms of an impairment of associative learning? Discuss with specific reference to spatial learning. (Dissertation Sample)

Hippocampal damage
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Hippocampal damage
Under a wide spectrum of health, hippocampus has widely been accepted to play a critical role in memory. However, the fundamental mechanism that underpins hippocampus has not been reached yet. Extensive research is inevitable in order to understand the whole episode about the damage that hippocampus usually do. However, this paper will illustrate, based on some statistics the extent of hippocampus damage in terms of an impairment of associative learning.
A theory has been formulated based on the rodent’s experiments. Notably, this theory proposes that spatial information can primarily be processed by hippocampus. This information is processed by the creation together with the storage representations of the spatial relationships, within some places in a world-centered environmental framework. Concerning wealth of information, it can be ascertained that there can be damage to human hippocampus. Considerably, this damage results in the task-impairments that do not involve overt of the spatial component. Experts illustrate that hippocampus has the ability to play a big role in binding together different elements (Giordani, & Benetolli, 2008). The neural coding according to allocentric space to this perspective is just one of the examples of all kinds of “conjunctive or configural”, which are literally mediated by hippocampus.
Hippocampus plays a very vital hypothesis in the association of many elements that are widely observable in rodents using “associative configural’ or non-linear class. These are class tasks that are used in rodents to demonstrate the bidding together of several elements of an experience. The core idea in the ‘associative configural’ is that, there is no element that can singly bring tenable solution to a problem. However, the objects depict the outcomes stemming from particular combinations. A non-spatial configural depicts some inconsistence, thus, it is believed that the primarily involvement of spatial configural learning provides the best outcomes.
There are several studies, which can be done on humans to find out the hippocampal responsibility in configural learning. In an investigation that involved neuroimaging, it emerged that damage is only restricted to the hippocampus. Here, patients with amnesia took considerable trials. However, they were able to solve the transverse patterning task relating to configural issue.
Study
Four patients were allowed to take part in the study. All were male with one being a left handed person. The entire patient had bilateral hippocampi damage together with a concomitant amnesia. The mean age was 39 years (range 24-58, S.D 15.9), all had fifteen years of education and a verbal IQ of 109.5. Structural MRI scans were the confirmation of the lesions, which seemed to affect hippocampi with the evidence notwithstanding in the media that was termed as the adjacent one (Kogure, Hossmann, & Siesjö, 2009).
Case report
The male left-handed patient, who was at that time aged twenty-four (that is during the time of testing), had undergone testing elsewhere. He had suffered several seizures, which led to his admission at ICU. The MRI revealed that he had high FLAIR signals that were seen selectively in both hippocampi. Due to his persistence memory impairments, he was forced to abandon his higher education. His emotional intelligence-psychological profile shows that his IQ was primarily (116). It emerged during the study period that this male’s language, execution, and perceptual functions were all in the normal range. It is noteworthy that that this male was already impaired. Further, he had a significant ungraded retrograde though temporarily. He also had ungraded retrograded amnesia for autobiographical events.
Patient two, a right-handed male was aged twenty-eight. His chest had been noted and then been described elsewhere. On his side, the description illustrates that this patients was suffering from perinatal anoxia, which was caused by the development of the amnesia. Hippocampus and the preserved surrounding cortical tissue faced had faced a reduction in volume for almost fifty percent. As much as he was suffering from this, he gradually managed to attend school up to the age of eighteen. However, due to his impaired memory, he can no longer work, even though currently, he can manage to do so as a gardener’s assistant. During the time of the study, the IQA level was in the average of 108. His performance recorded a normalcy in execution and perception functions as well as language. The anterograded memory in charge of episode was actually very impaired. He also exuded the capacity to retrieve and acquire from the long time semantic memory information. His performance was on a normal limit, prior to some test of recognition, however very impaired on the recognition test. He could hardly remember some autobiographical events, which was a clear indication that his brain was damaged.
About the third person, the following were recorded. Physically, the patient was also a male, aged forty seven and right handed, in the same way, his cases had been described somewhere else, and the following are some of his case’s description. He was a university graduate, and was teaching biochemistry. He had contracted menengeoncephalitis when he was thirty-four. By that time, the disorder showed a sense of recurring. He had several infections. Prior to experiment, it emerged that P03’s missed in the stimuli. The recent MRI scanning that he took part in illustrates that the volume reduction in hippocampi had bee reduced to forty-eight, and inn the right, the reduction read forty-six – which below the control mean, just as the right side was. In accordance to his neuropsycholocal profile, it was noted that his IQ was in the higher average range of 113. On test of language, his performance was normal, as well as his execution function. Perception, allowed his visual deficit field. Further, it emerged that his memory that had played a crucial role in controlling the information totally damaged. Fortunately, he could retain some ability, which helped him acquire semantic information in a new manner. On some test of recognition, his performance was within the normal limits, however, when he took part on test of recall, he was very impaired. Further test demonstrated that for four decades his memory was impaired completely.
For patient four, according to his details, this was also a male right-handed patient, aged fifty-eight. He was reported to abandon school at the age of eleven, however, after sometimes, he returned to accomplish his university degree. He had worked as a trader at a certain market for 20years, prior to his disease. He was diagnosed with a certain onset of memory difficulties, where he claimed that he is experiencing panic attacks. Subsequently, the attacks were confirmed as seizures. According to MRI scan, there was a revelation of high signal that were primarily common with the amygdale and hippocampi. Following consistent diagnosis and interventions by the health care experts, the infection of limbic encephalitis became evident. After a second scan took place after eighteen months, it was discovered that the problem had resolved. However, on the side of his hipaccampi, it was noted to be small. As much as he was a bit normal, it was not allowed for him to return to work, because he still faced repeated memory loss. According to his neuropsychological profile, it was confirmed that he had a normal range of verbal IQ of about to 99. The number of tests for the clarification purposes on terms of perception and execution functions subjected to him was limited in that English was not his native language. When anterograde memory test were done on him, it was clear as per his performance that he had a problem. This is because he performed dismally especially on visual and verbal recognition tests. Another noticeable problem was that his verbal was total impaired. After the test of retrograde was done, it was discovered that he had amnesia back, then in ten years time, for autobiographical events.
All the above study was done as a survey to indicate the degree of hippocampus damage in terms of an impairment of associative learning. With that, it was equally important to take note of all activities and physical nature of each person, so that a clear conclusion could be met after which a directive answers could be fished from the observations.
Plan
First, they were told to play the role of forecasting whether, after which they will learn how different patterns and shape on the screen were displayed. The main objective of the study here was that to identify whether amnesic patients who had already suffered hippocampal damage would be able to grasp associative task. This task relied upon acquiring configural information. The study further gave a room for the understanding of the role of hippocampus in spatial-studying. The study was useful and certain helpful information was retrieved and analyzed as below. First, it is better to note that it was from the above observation, that is how they answered the questions, how they managed to interpreted the shapes on the screen just to mention but a few.
Using a laptop, all tasks were done, while subjects responded by using two keys marked R and S. these was a denotation of the outcome Rain, and Sun respectively. The allocation of the keys for clarity of differentiation was randomized within the subject. After this experiment, other stimuli, representing four geometrical shapes were displayed on the screen. After this arrangement, the subjects were told to imagine they are predicting whether it is going to rain or not, based on the screen. Before prediction, the task instructions were done successively....