Memory and the Brain
Description
First published in 1984, Memory and the Brain is a valuable contribution to the field of neuropsychology. It is here reprinted by Taylor & Francis.
Magda Arnold was a Thomist psychologist; cf. the following, in which she is also seen to be a cognitivist (that the 🧠 is a sort of computer):
- Arnold, Magda B. “The Internal Senses—Functions or Powers?: Part II.” The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review 26, no. 1 (1963): 15–34.
- the article cited in my comments to her Emotion and Personality
Google Scholar's list of 217 citations to this ed. and Dimensions.ai 10 citations
She wrote this while on sabbatical; cf. pp. 915-6 of:
- Shields, Stephanie A. “Magda B. Arnold’s Life and Work in Context.” Cognition and Emotion 20, no. 7 (2006): 902–19. DOI: 10.1080/02699930600615827.
Excellent sequal to Feser, Immortal Souls.
Magda Arnold, Thomist neuroscientist 🧠:
Arnold was a Thomist psychologist. Chapters 9 & 10 are congenial to Aristotle's and St. Thomas Aquinas's psychology, which she calls the "perennial philosophy", and to his On Memory and Recollection.
Cornelius, Randolph R. "Magda Arnold's Thomistic Theory of Emotion, the Self-Ideal, and the Moral Dimension of Appraisal." Cognition and Emotion 20, no. 7 (2006): 976–1000. DOI: 10.1080/02699930600616411:
« By summer's end, Arnold reports that she had read Aquinas' De Anima and parts of Summa Theologica (presumably, the ''Treatise on Human Acts'', and at least some of the ''Treatise on Man''). ''To this day'', she says of De Anima, ''I have not found anything to surpass it. It fits modern research findings and makes them intelligible in a way I have found nowhere else'' (Arnold [autobiography], n.d., p. 13). »
Bortfeld, Heather, Steven M. Smith, and Louis G. Tassinary. “Memory and the Brain: A Retrospective.” Cognition and Emotion 20, no. 7 (2006): 1027–45. DOI: 10.1080/02699930600616353.
Regarding the localization of psychological functions (ch. 10 [ref:18.1] & ff.), cf. § "Where facts in LLMs live", How might LLMs store facts | Deep Learning Chapter 7 , @22:42, which mentions the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma regarding how more info can be stored with higher-dimensional embeddings.
(Vide also GPTs / LLMs / Transformers for 🇻🇦→🇬🇧 NMT.)
Preface
11/23/25Preface : 10
I have made no effort to be strictly up-to-date. A theory does not depend on the latest research. If it is adequate and has the support of years of research by widely scattered experimenters, it will not be replaced in a year or so.
Continuity thesis
11/22/25Preface : 10
Computer models of memory processing, as Tulving (1979) remarks, “may provide a sense of accomplishment to their creators” but such “correspondence models do not bring us any understanding of memory or its phenomena.”
Sounds Duhemian. Mechanical models ≠ explanations.
Perceptual Integration
11/23/25Perceptual Integration : 20
integrative sense
sensus communis?
11/22/25Perceptual Integration : 21
tachistoscopic
?
Consciousness, Memory And Perception
12/10/25Consciousness, Memory And Perception : 30
afferent
= ?
2. Attention
11/23/252. Attention : 38
Attention is a condition of cognition just as light is a condition of sight.
11/23/252. Attention : 41
neither the original theory nor Treisman's modification can explain how attention can be directed toward meaningful material when the filter is only equipped to deal with the physical features of the stimulus
so cognition involved in selective attention
11/23/252. Attention : 47
We do not learn attention,
Can‘t we?
11/23/252. Attention : 47
we merely learn to what we should attend, just as we do not learn to see, we merely learn to interpret what we see
11/23/252. Attention : 49
special cell columns in the visual cortex have been found to respond to vertical, horizontal, and oblique lines, and to movement (Hubel & Wiesel, 1962).
standard visual neural net ref
3. Reinforcement, Reward: Appraisal and Affective Memory
11/24/253. Reinforcement, Reward: Appraisal and Affective Memory : 55
Learning has usually been ascribed to the “law of effect” (Thorndike, 1931), or the reinforcement of the correct response. In other words, the subject must be reinforced by each correct response to go on learning.
explains why games are good educational tools
The Appraisal of Objects and Bodily States
11/24/25The Appraisal of Objects and Bodily States : 66
some philosophers have called the appraisal sense an “internal sense” like memory or imagination, assuming that such feelings could not be mediated by known peripheral fibers.
St. Thom et al.?
Affective Memory
11/25/25Affective Memory : 75
Perception includes interpretation;
Duhemian: background hypotheses interpret experimental/sensory data
4. Types of Modality-Specific Memory: Sensory, Motor, Conceptual
11/24/254. Types of Modality-Specific Memory: Sensory, Motor, Conceptual : 76
impulse to approach the “good” and avoid the “bad” object
concupiscitive/irrascible appetites
Visual and Auditory Memory
11/24/25Visual and Auditory Memory : 80
Guttman and Julesz (1963) found that subjects could recognize that a section of a random broadband noise was repeated. They described the periodic repetition as the sound of a motor boat, at a repetition rate between one and four times a second. At faster repetition rates, they heard the sound as a low tone. As Crowder (1976) points out, it is quite remarkable that the men were able to hold the segments in memory for as long as a second because “detecting repetition of white noise segments is like recognizing two patches of waves while one is sailing across the ocean” (p. 46).
Interesting!
Motor Memory
11/24/25Motor Memory : 84
Tabes dorsalis
?
Recall
11/24/25Recall : 103
The more memory modalities (motor: speech, drawing, writing; visual: sight of word or design; hearing: sound of word or melody) are used in recall, the stronger the probability that recall will be perfect.
thus teaching should be multisensory
Immediate Versus Long-Term Memory
11/24/25Immediate Versus Long-Term Memory : 106
“icon” (Neisser, 1967
Peircean?
Forgetting: Lost Access Or Lost Memory?
11/25/25Forgetting: Lost Access Or Lost Memory? : 130
pentothal
?
11/25/25Forgetting: Lost Access Or Lost Memory? : 130
TAT stories
?
6. Imagination and Recall
11/25/256. Imagination and Recall : 131
Imagination
phantasms?
Images And Imagination
11/25/25Images And Imagination : 133
Mnemonic systems based on the visualization of figures, words, and objects to be remembered have existed from antiquity; but not until recently have psychologists taken notice.
method of loci
Recall And Imagination
11/25/25Recall And Imagination : 135
Curiously enough, psychologists are willing to grant rats the ability to form hypotheses (which surely require abstract thinking) but unwilling to admit that they have imagination—which requires nothing but sensory images of concretely experienced things.
Animals can form phantasms.
11/25/25Recall And Imagination : 135
Some people can imagine speech or musical patterns much more readily than they can visualize something.
like Mozart
11/25/25Recall And Imagination : 136
Arnold Schoenberg mentioned that he heard his String Quartet No. 2 as a finished work in imagination and simply wrote it down as he heard it
!
11/25/25Recall And Imagination : 139
Chevreuil pendulum
?
11/25/25Recall And Imagination : 139
Beattie (1949) found that practicing dart throwing in imagination for ten minutes daily was as effective as actual practice for 15 minutes a day.
11/25/25Recall And Imagination : 141
imaginative supplementation of memory Bartlett demonstrated; his results show that there are no definite boundary lines between recall and imagination
11/25/25Recall And Imagination : 142
Imagination, like recall, can be voluntary or involuntary.
Visual Imagery And Verbal Memory
11/25/25Visual Imagery And Verbal Memory : 142
It has been known since ancient times that using visual images to remember words and sentences improves recall.
11/25/25Visual Imagery And Verbal Memory : 148
there is no reason at all why a human being should remember in exactly the same way a computer does
Sensory Equipment Of Animals
11/25/25Sensory Equipment Of Animals : 149
What they cannot do is to employ attention, memory, and imagination deliberately, as can human beings.
b/c humans have freewill
11/25/25Sensory Equipment Of Animals : 150
Morgan's canon
?
Theories Of Recognition
11/26/25Theories Of Recognition : 157
Underwood (1969) distinguishes background frequency and situational frequency. Frequently occurring events (digits, letters of the alphabet, words or word fragments) represent the background frequency. The task items in a memory experiment represent the situational frequency.
mentions TF-IDF?
11/26/25Theories Of Recognition : 158
The studies of Gorman (1961) and Shepard (1967) support this explanation. They used high- and low-frequency words from the Thorndike and Lorge (1944) word count, and found that high-frequency words were less easily recognized than low-frequency words.
TF-IDF
The Problem Of Recognition
11/26/25The Problem Of Recognition : 164
without recognition, there is no memory
11/26/25The Problem Of Recognition : 165
recall must end in recognition to be experienced as a memory
11/26/25The Problem Of Recognition : 168
Word Frequency. Shepard (1967) reported that recognition was better for low-frequency words than for high-frequency words, regardless of the frequency count of the distractor words. In contrast, recall is better for high-frequency words than for low-frequency words (Deese, 1961; Kinsbourne & George, 1974).
11/27/25The Problem Of Recognition : 170
Their students learned twelve nonsense syllables to a criterion of one errorless repetition.
Anki
11/27/25The Problem Of Recognition : 170
One group recalled their material after twenty minutes, another after one day, and still another after two days. Recognition was tested in different groups at the same intervals.
spaced repetition
11/27/25The Problem Of Recognition : 170
At all intervals, recognition was practically perfect.
Current Memory Models
11/28/25Current Memory Models : 181
We neither perceive nor remember the way a computer does; and the human brain has no similarity with the electronic system of a computer.
Jaki says exactly this, too.
The Model of Norman and Rumelhart
11/28/25The Model of Norman and Rumelhart : 196
Perhaps a computer is fast enough to search among all possible names for something red, next for something round, next for something bouncing, and finally for something having all these attributes and also made of rubber, and come up with an answer in the time it takes a person to give the response “ball.” But a human being certainly could not do it. And even computers have thus far not been programmed to recognize and name objects.
a fortiori argument we don’t search to recognize
9. A Psychological Theory of Cognition and Memory
11/28/259. A Psychological Theory of Cognition and Memory : 213
an adequate theory of human memory requires a comprehensive theory of human psychological functioning
An Integral Theory Of Psychological Functions
11/28/25An Integral Theory Of Psychological Functions : 216
Perception to Decision and Action
Peirce’s triad?
The Sensory System.
11/28/25The Sensory System. : 223
Spontaneous recall also occurs when we encounter something we want to identify.
recognition = sponaneous recall in her theory?
11/28/25The Sensory System. : 224
memories are never “there,” they are potential dispositions to be actualized
hylemorphic
11/29/25The Sensory System. : 227
The elaborate mnemonic systems that have been devised from time immemorial bear witness to the expansion of memory possible in man.
method of loci
11/29/25The Sensory System. : 231
In this brief outline of cognitive functions and the memory systems embedded in them, I have built upon foundations laid by the perennial philosophy.
Aristotle, Aquinas
10. Localization of Psychological Functions
12/04/2510. Localization of Psychological Functions : 245
I suggest that we are more likely to find out how the brain works by studying the brain itself and the phenomena of behavior than by indulging in far-fetched physical analogies.
quasi-Duhemian / anti-mechanical analogies
12/04/2510. Localization of Psychological Functions : 261
anosmic
?
12/04/2510. Localization of Psychological Functions : 263
A sensory center does not manufacture sensations nor does the motor cortex act like a switch that is somehow operated by the “will.”
12/04/2510. Localization of Psychological Functions : 263
The brain does not act of itself and by itself. It is always the person who acts; and whenever he or she acts, the brain functions in a particular way.
The Primary Sensory Cortex
12/10/25The Primary Sensory Cortex : 274
Writing also is affected because both the articulation and the writing of words become uncertain if the ear cannot distinguish between similar sounds. When the patient is asked to repeat letters like g and k, or b and p, he cannot do so correctly unless he can see the letters as well as hearing the sounds
written and spoken word thus tightly related
12/11/25The Primary Sensory Cortex : 276
retinotopically
= ?
12/11/25The Primary Sensory Cortex : 282
sweet, sour, bitter, or salty
& MSG, too, right?
12/11/25The Primary Sensory Cortex : 286
macrosmatic
= ?
12/11/25The Primary Sensory Cortex : 287
It could be said with justice that the cortical feltwork mediates an integrative experience, that it is the organ of the integrative sense.
vis cogitativa / vis æstimativa / sesus communis
Appraisal
12/11/25Appraisal : 289
cortical limbic system
What‘s in this system?
Appraisal Areas
12/11/25Appraisal Areas : 301
Appraisal Areas
The Cingulate Gyrus. The effect of cingulate gyrus lesions was first reported by Ward (1948). Monkeys with such lesions acted impulsively without regard for their fellows.
do autistics have deformed Cingulate Gyrus?
12/11/25Appraisal Areas : 302
Ward's monkeys had lost the pleasure of touch because the area needed for the appraisal of touch had been destroyed.
Auditory Memory Area
12/16/25Auditory Memory Area : 321
To understand speech, we must be able to distinguish the varying sounds in the continuous speech melody, and know what the sounds mean. We need both sound and word memory. In learning a foreign language, it is very difficult at first to hear and understand connected speech because the sounds are not readily distinguishable into words, and the words we can distinguish, we have to translate. Reading a foreign language is simpler because we see the words, recognize them, and can take time to recall what they mean. In listening to a lecture, we have to guess at the words and guess at their meaning and never seem to catch up with the speaker. It takes considerable practice not only in hearing but in speaking a foreign language before auditory analysis becomes effortless.
Thus active mastery is vital when learning a new language.
Somatosensory Memory Area.
12/13/25Somatosensory Memory Area. : 330
(formboard).
?
Affective Memory Areas
12/15/25Affective Memory Areas : 342
vomeronasal
?
Biochemical Transfer Of Training
12/15/25Biochemical Transfer Of Training : 348
injected parenterally
?
12/15/25Biochemical Transfer Of Training : 349
caudal
?
12/15/25Biochemical Transfer Of Training : 349
intraperitoneally
?
12/15/25Biochemical Transfer Of Training : 350
shuttle box
?
Motor Areas
12/15/25Motor Areas : 359
decussate
?
The Initiation Of Action
12/16/25The Initiation Of Action : 382
Degeneration of the basal ganglia results in Parkinsonism or Huntington's chorea, and cerebellar lesions produce ataxia and tremor.
Affective Motor Memory
12/17/25Affective Motor Memory : 417
But without some help in appraising a situation more objectively, the patient will experience the same shrinking and be urged to the same actions.
cf. Ripperger’s saying mental illness is loss of touch wih reality
The Anterior Cingulate Gyrus
12/17/25The Anterior Cingulate Gyrus : 419
Wilsoncroft (1963), anterior cingulate lesions disrupted maternal behavior far more than posterior cingulate lesions
Luria's Results
12/17/25Luria's Results : 432
Since easy distractibility is another symptom of frontal lobe damage
ADHD?
Animal Experiments
12/17/25Animal Experiments : 442
animals with frontal lesions are more distractible than intact animals
Theories Of Frontal function
12/17/25Theories Of Frontal function : 446
“the frontal eugranular isocortex evolved as part of a biological interface that couples the flickering evanescence of the neocortical information processing systems to the plodding neural elements of the more primitive layers of the brain.
tainted with evolutionism
12/17/25Theories Of Frontal function : 446
poetry
She recognizes the evolutionism as poetry, too, it seems.
Experimental Explorations
12/18/25Experimental Explorations : 454
Electrical stimulation of a structure prevents the normal use of that structure.
12/18/25Experimental Explorations : 459
adolfactory
?
12/18/25Experimental Explorations : 470
affective somatosensory memory of the pain serves the animal as substitute for the lost affective motor memory
hence why corporal punishment works in those with impaired reasoning
12/18/25Experimental Explorations : 472
negative steady electrical potential shifts (NPS
12/18/25Experimental Explorations : 474
Once we assign motor and affective motor memory, motor imagination and the appraisal of motor impulses to the dorsolateral and medial precentral frontal lobe, and olfactory memory and appraisal to the posterior orbital cortex, we resolve the apparent contradiction between lesion effects in animals and human beings.
Memory Retrieval
12/18/25Memory Retrieval : 478
motor memory is involved in almost every case.
12/18/25Memory Retrieval : 480
before concentrating on a theory of memory retrieval via definite brain circuits, I would like to discuss the rival theory of memory storage and consolidation in the light of known brain function.
12/18/25Memory Retrieval : 481
Just where in the brain the short term memory is stored, how it is transferred into long term storage, and where the storage could be has not been hinted at by consolidation theorists.
hippocampus?
The Mechanism Of Memory Recall
12/19/25The Mechanism Of Memory Recall : 490
memory images are registered in the association cortex close to sensory and motor cortex
12/19/25The Mechanism Of Memory Recall : 490
Because recall means reviving memory images in the original order and sequence, the circuit that reactivates them must repeat the pattern and sequence in which they were laid down.
not if memories are time-stamped
12/19/25The Mechanism Of Memory Recall : 491
Bilateral hippocampal lesions, whether made by the surgeon's knife, or resulting from disease or trauma, are responsible for true amnesia
12/19/25The Mechanism Of Memory Recall : 502
the hippocampus does receive relays from all sensory and motor areas
12/19/25The Mechanism Of Memory Recall : 509
the expectation of a particular kind of food (meat, lemon), produces the kind of gastric secretion necessary for digesting it
12/20/25The Mechanism Of Memory Recall : 510
Brazier (1972) reports that theta waves of waking human patients recorded in the amygdala consistently lead those recorded from the dorsomedial thalamic nuclei (by 7 milliseconds), and those recorded from the septum (by 15 milliseconds).
Phase shifts don’t prove one wave leads another. How do waves lead, anyways?
12/20/25The Mechanism Of Memory Recall : 511
When these memories are reactivated, we experience memory images, not the original sensations.
But can original sensations be re-experienced somehow?
Neural Mediation Of Attention
12/22/25Neural Mediation Of Attention : 528
Clara (1959) calls the diencephalic central gray the functional center of the organism, the bridge between mental and physical processes.
The Medial Appraisal System
12/22/25The Medial Appraisal System : 532
During anesthesia, when the medial appraisal system is suppressed,
Peripheral Afferents in the Appraisal System
12/22/25Peripheral Afferents in the Appraisal System : 536
sectioning the lateral spinothalamic tract at a high thoracic or medullary level (tractotomy) relieves intractable pain-but it also abolishes sexual pleasure (Clara, 1959
12/22/25Peripheral Afferents in the Appraisal System : 538
The terminal nerve occurs in all mammals, including the human being. In animals, it is closely associated with the vomeronasal organ, which is present in the human embryo but has atrophied in the adult.
embryos have something adults do not
12/22/25Peripheral Afferents in the Appraisal System : 539
the terminal nerve, which projects directly to limbic structures, is proof that the olfactory lobe belongs to the limbic as much as to the olfactory system
Aristotle right about aromatherapeutic effects on brain.
12/23/25Peripheral Afferents in the Appraisal System : 543
human adults no longer have a vomeronasal organ
Thalamic and Midbrain Levels of the Appraisal System
12/23/25Thalamic and Midbrain Levels of the Appraisal System : 544
If the activity of this medial appraisal system is suppressed, for instance during anesthesia, man or animal becomes unconscious.
12/23/25Thalamic and Midbrain Levels of the Appraisal System : 544
The evoked potentials in the sensory pathway, the medial lemniscus, were not affected.
Facilitation and Inhibition of Sensory Experience.
12/24/25Facilitation and Inhibition of Sensory Experience. : 548
Attention can bring about facilitation as well as inhibition.
Appraisal And Action
12/26/25Appraisal And Action : 558
inattention is often called “sensory neglect,” because the animal does not react to a sensory stimulus. But the term is a misnomer. The animal does not neglect the stimulus; rather, it cannot react to it
ADHD
18. Damage to the Appraisal System and the Affective Memory Circuit
12/26/2518. Damage to the Appraisal System and the Affective Memory Circuit : 565
MacLean's flight of poetic fancy has been taken seriously by many a layman who supposes with a delicious shudder that he still has a piece of the old reptile in him
anti-evolutionary?
12/26/2518. Damage to the Appraisal System and the Affective Memory Circuit : 565
Sober consideration of the evidence (see Chapter 17) indicates, on the contrary, that the “reptilian” medial system is an indispensible part of the nervous system of all vertebrates.
Affective Memory And Two-Stage Brain Lesions
12/26/25Affective Memory And Two-Stage Brain Lesions : 567
But if the same lesion is made first on one side, and after some recovery time on the other, the animal is usually able to relearn the task with further training.
so there‘s reduplication?
Neural Connections In The Appraisal System
12/31/25Neural Connections In The Appraisal System : 595
Affective memory enables us to relive pleasure as well as pain. What is some-times called “psychic” sexual stimulation (looking at pornographic pictures or reading salacious material) seems to depend on such affective memory of formerly experienced sexual pleasure. Apparently, sexual pleasure can be revived via the affective memory circuit. Ploog and MacLean (1963) have reported that electrical stimulation of the mamillary bodies resulted in penile erection in squirrel monkeys.
12/31/25Neural Connections In The Appraisal System : 597
Electric stimulation of the anterior thalamus in waking patients has resulted in smiling and laughing (Hassler, 1961).
12/31/25Neural Connections In The Appraisal System : 598
Hassler also reported that bilateral stereotactic coagulation of the anterior thalamic nuclei resulted in the disappearance of tactile and auditory hallucinations in a schizophrenic patient.
Right Hemisphere Functions
12/31/25Right Hemisphere Functions : 627
right hemisphere lesions have resulted in difficulty in recognizing faces,
prosopagnosia
The Split-Brain Animal
01/01/26The Split-Brain Animal : 662
the corpus callosum relays a mirror-image of the engram on the trained side to the untrained side.
Structure Of The Hippocampal Formation
01/01/26Structure Of The Hippocampal Formation : 678
that synapse with
verbal form
01/02/26Structure Of The Hippocampal Formation : 688
large proportion of dentate granule cells (5 out of 6) are formed after birth (Altman & Bayer, 1975
01/02/26Structure Of The Hippocampal Formation : 693
Hines (1922) and Yakovlev et al. (1960) have pointed out that the indusium griseum in the embryo has the same structure as the hippocampus and is similarly connected with the fornix. For this reason, it is often called the hippocampal rudiment
Hippocampal Theta Waves
01/02/26Hippocampal Theta Waves : 705
rhythmic slow activity (RSA or theta waves),
Single-Cell Recording
01/02/26Single-Cell Recording : 721
Hippocampal Activity During Learning.
01/02/26Single-Cell Recording : 723
Berger and Thompson (1978a) found that these cells paced behavioral learning, increasing their activity as soon as the animal began to learn.
01/02/26Single-Cell Recording : 724
We can conclude with Thompson that the hippocampus initiates the impulse to learn, and paces learning;
Hippocampal Damage In Human Beings
01/02/26Hippocampal Damage In Human Beings : 730
He remembered little of his childhood and nothing about recent events or actions. He did not recognize old friends, was unable to learn anything, and seemed to be motivated exclusively by physiological appetites.
01/02/26Hippocampal Damage In Human Beings : 731
Less extreme but still serious memory defects followed a series of medial temporal ablations which included the uncus, amygdala, and anterior hippocampus. In several reports, Milner (1958, 1959, 1968a, 1970), has described the effect of these surgical ablations. Since these patients were studied exhaustively, we can learn a great deal from the kind of memory defects reported. Such patients can repeat up to nine digits and carry out mental arithmetic. But they cannot recall the test material after five minutes if they have done something else in the interval. They cannot recall words, sentences, stories, drawings, or objects. A patient may remember his old address but not the new one to which his family moved after his operation. He cannot recognize friends by sight, reads the same magazines over and over, and cannot find his way home. One of the patients Milner studied could not learn a visual maze with buzzers indicating errors, but learned mirror drawing easily. Motor skills, like cutting gloves or preparing blueprints, were preserved in all patients (Milner, 1965). Whether a patient later recognized what he had made seemed to depend on the extent of the hippocampal ablation.
01/02/26Hippocampal Damage In Human Beings : 736
The Korsakoff patient intends to remember but can only activate the imagination (not the memory) circuit. He thinks he is recounting a memory because that was his intention, but he has only activated the imagination circuit and so he confabulates instead.
01/02/26Hippocampal Damage In Human Beings : 740
they may make a glove or a blueprint, but once finished, they do not recognize it as their own handiwork
01/02/26Hippocampal Damage In Human Beings : 741
With both amygdalae also missing, patients cannot use their imagination to hunt for the word to be recalled.
The Precommissural Fornix
01/05/26The Precommissural Fornix : 779
Using autoradiographic methods, Swanson and Cowan (1976) found that the medial septal and diagonal band nuclei project through the fimbria and dorsal fornix to the hilar regions of the dentate gyrus, to fields CA 2, CA 3, and CA 4 of the hippocampus, to the subiculum and parasubiculum, and the entorhinal cortex.
has difusion MRI confirmed this?
The Septal Area
01/05/26The Septal Area : 796
Lesions of the amygdalo-septal connection also decreased the animals' aggression in feeding, and reduced food-connected fighting. This is a well-known result of some amygdala lesions (see chapter 23).
01/05/26The Septal Area : 797
excitability occurs after amygdala lesions because the animal no longer is able to imagine what might happen when it encounters anything
Doesn’t immagination exacerbate fear?
01/05/26The Septal Area : 797
septal hyperreactivity
01/05/26The Septal Area : 802
Reis (1974) found that anger and aggressive attacks are accompanied by an increased turnover of noradrenaline in the brain.
ira
01/05/26The Septal Area : 803
Another reason for septal hyperirritability may be the fact that sex hormones can no longer affect the amygdala and imagination circuit, so that the animal can no longer form an image of mate and mating. After septal lesions, the animal also can no longer imagine what to do about the impulse he feels, hence sexual tension results in general irritability. Phillips and Lieblich (1972) report that the hyperexcitability after septal lesions can be prevented by castrating the rats before their thirtieth day of life. This would confirm my suggestion that circulating sex hormones result in hyperreactivity if the animals are unable to imagine and plan appropriate action.
sex & anger
Connections Of The Amygdala
01/05/26Connections Of The Amygdala : 826
Relays from Amygdala to Limbic Cortex. Stimulation of the amygdala seems first to excite limbic cortical areas and later various areas in the association cortex. In human beings, such stimulation evokes complex formed hallucinations, as in a dream, or vague scenes like intruding fantasy images. Sometimes it produces simple visual or touch sensations, sometimes sensations of smell or taste, or sensations of nausea.
01/06/26Connections Of The Amygdala : 833
imagining a movement produces action currents in the muscles used for that movement
01/06/26Connections Of The Amygdala : 833
Following my theory, the psychological and neurophysiological sequence would be something like this:
I see a big animal in the woods (via sensory projection to visual cortex)
appraise it as “good to know” (attention, via visual limbic cortex)
recall similar animals (via modality-specific memory circuit to sensory memory areas)
recognize it as a bear (appraise it as familiar, via limbic cortex) appraise it as bad (dangerous) (via limbic cortex)
imagine what might happen (from limbic cortex to periamygdaloid cortex and amygdala; via anterior thalamic nuclei to limbic cortex (affective memory), and via thalamic association nuclei to sensory memory cortex—imagination circuit)
and what I might do about it (motor imagination circuit; via dorsomedial thalamic nucleus to motor memory area in prefrontal cortex)
I feel fear (limbic cortex to hippocampus, and via action circuit to midbrain and cerebellum, returning via thalamus to prefrontal and premotor cortex)
plan (imagine) how to escape (from limbic cortex to amygdala, and via dorsomedial thalamic nucleus to frontal lobe—motor imagination circuit)
appraise an escape route as suitable (via anterior cingulate gyrus)
and run (to hippocampus and via midbrain, cerebellum, ventral thalmic nuclei to frontal lobe and motor cortex—action circuit.
summary of her theory
01/06/26Connections Of The Amygdala : 834
these circuits are activated in series as well as in parallel.
01/06/26Connections Of The Amygdala : 835
bilateral ablation of the amygdala leads to increased aggression
01/06/26Connections Of The Amygdala : 835
total bilateral amygdalectomy results in tameness, with no evidence of rage or fear
01/06/26Connections Of The Amygdala : 836
such animals are severely impaired in social situations. Monkey mothers behave, says Kling, “as though the infant … [were] a strange object to be mouthed, bitten, and tossed around as though it were a rubber ball” (p. 512
!
01/06/26Connections Of The Amygdala : 836
These animals withdrew from their cage mates, became isolated, were attacked by intact cage mates, and soon died. The “oral” and odd sexual behavior was apparent only when several amygdalectomized monkeys were in one cage, probably because intact animals would not let them approach but attacked them. In a natural setting, such animals withdrew from the group and eventually disappeared.
Patterns Of Emotional Excitation
01/06/26Patterns Of Emotional Excitation : 839
Often, stimulation first evokes attention, which with continued stimulation eventually becomes rage.
01/06/26Patterns Of Emotional Excitation : 839
Sleep.
01/06/26Patterns Of Emotional Excitation : 840
Relaxation and sleep result, I believe, from the suppression of imagination and recall, producing EEG synchronization via cholinergic inhibitory fibers.
cf. mental fatigue
01/06/26Patterns Of Emotional Excitation : 841
It is well known that rage can also be produced by stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus.
01/06/26Patterns Of Emotional Excitation : 842
Local injection of acetylcholine in the prepiriform and piriform cortex and in the magnocellular part of the basal nuclei also produced rage (Hernández-Peón, et al., 1967).
01/06/26Patterns Of Emotional Excitation : 842
aggression is mediated by cholinergic pathways.
01/07/26Patterns Of Emotional Excitation : 845
imagination initiates and perpetuates fear. When an area outside the “fear” zone, but still within the amygdala, is excited, other images and emotions replace fear images
Instinctive Activities
01/08/26Instinctive Activities : 847
Sexual Activities. Electrical stimulation of the stria terminalis, the corticomedial, and possibly the parvocellular basal nuclei induces ovulation, milk secretion, uterine movements, and penile erection (Kaada, 1972). Stimulation of the amygdala has induced ovulation in rats after spontaneous ovulation was blocked by drugs or constant light. Ovulation was prevented by lesions of the stria terminalis but not of the ventral amygdalofugal pathway (Velasco & Taleisnik, 1969). Apparently, the animal must imagine mating (via stria terminalis connection to frontal cortex) before ovulation can occur. When spontaneous ovulation is blocked by nembutal, it can be induced by copulation. But a lesion at the anterior border of the preoptic area blocks such copulation-induced ovulation (Kalra & Sawyer, 1970). This lesion apparently blocks relays from amygdala to hypothalamus, activated during imagination; while lesions of the stria terminalis block relays to the dorsomedial thalamic nucleus and the cortical limbic area, so abolishing images of mate and mating.
stimulated vs. induced ovulation etc.
24. Neurotransmitters in the Brain
01/08/2624. Neurotransmitters in the Brain : 867
the transmitter is amplified several thousandfold before it is passed on as a nerve impulse
Acetylcholine (Ach).
01/08/26Acetylcholine (Ach). : 873
Since acetylcholinesterase is found not only in cell bodies but also in axons and dendrites, this technique does not indicate the direction of neural conduction. However, Shute and Lewis (1967) found that AChE accumulates on the cell body side of a cut axon and disappears at the side cut off from the cell body, so that the direction of conduction can be inferred.
how afferent vs. efferent distinguished
01/08/26Acetylcholine (Ach). : 877
AchE piles up on the septal side of the lesion indicating that cholinergic conduction from septum to hippocampus has been interrupted (Storm-Mathisen. 1978).
how afferent vs. efferent distinguished
01/08/26Acetylcholine (Ach). : 891
Acetylcholine and Memory Research.
01/08/26Acetylcholine (Ach). : 891
anticholinergic drugs produce impairment of passive avoidance and spontaneous alternation, also defects in habituation and successive discrimination, effects similar to those of hippocampal lesions (Straughan, 1975; Douglas, 1975; see also chapter 21).
drugs affecting openmindedness?
01/09/26Acetylcholine (Ach). : 895
Physostigmine by itself had no significant effect; but given after scopolamine, it produced a significant memory improvement and rising performance I.Q.
Gaba, Glutamate, Aspartate, And Glycine
01/09/26Gaba, Glutamate, Aspartate, And Glycine : 897
Interneurons simply function as relays between afferent and efferent fibers.
The Main Dopamine System4
01/09/26The Main Dopamine System4 : 905
Dopamine has been associated with two brain disorders: a deficiency of the transmitter in the corpus striatum causes the rigidity and tremor of Parkinson's disease, and an excess of dopamine in limbic forebrain may be involved in schizophrenia.
01/09/26The Main Dopamine System4 : 905
I would like to suggest that dopamine is the neurotransmitter in the imagination circuit.
Magda on dopomine
Noradrenaline and Serotonin Systems
01/09/26Noradrenaline and Serotonin Systems : 910
aggressive men excrete significantly more methyl-NA than men who are inclined to blame themselves; the latter have higher methyl-adrenaline levels than aggressive men.
related to testosterone?
01/11/26Noradrenaline and Serotonin Systems : 921
activity of raphé cells is inhibited by systemic injection of drugs like LSD or DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine
Neurotransmitters And The Reward System
01/11/26Neurotransmitters And The Reward System : 936
animals preferred brain stimulation at certain sites to food, provided stimulation was available continuously (Falk, 1961; Spies, 1965). Both rats and monkeys pressed a treadle for brain stimulation rather than another for food, actually starving themselves. Only one other reward has produced continuous responding for a long time—a mixture of saccharine and diluted sucrose (Valenstein et al., 1967
01/11/26Neurotransmitters And The Reward System : 940
Stimulation via electrodes in the septal areas produced sexual arousal, probably because the electrodes activated serotonin fibers from the anterior hypothalamus.
01/11/26Neurotransmitters And The Reward System : 940
Rewarding brain stimulation in the septal area has often suppressed pain for two to three days (German & Bowden, 1974).
01/11/26Neurotransmitters And The Reward System : 941
Most stimulation sites produce mixed effects, but in far lateral and far medial areas of the hypothalamus, reward predominates.
Neurotransmitters And Psychiatric Illness
01/12/26Neurotransmitters And Psychiatric Illness : 961
hebephrenic schizophrenia
01/13/26Neurotransmitters And Psychiatric Illness : 973
increased activity in the serotonin system means increased positive appraisals, according to my theory. When appraisals become increasingly negative after a loss of love or possessions, noradrenergic excitation dominates and results in grief and depression.
01/13/26Neurotransmitters And Psychiatric Illness : 973
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), like serotonin itself, depresses raphé activity, which counteracts the inhibition normally exercised by raphé axons on other neurons.
01/13/26Neurotransmitters And Psychiatric Illness : 974
the reduction of raphé axon activity after LSD, which lifts the inhibition on dopamine neurons is sufficient to maintain fantasy images and thus hallucinations.
The Cerebellum
01/15/26The Cerebellum : 989
Fig. 26.2 From intention to move to motor command; Suggested relays from sensory to motor cortex.
useful flow chart
01/15/26The Cerebellum : 993
destruction of the auditory region on both sides of the cerebellum greatly reduces startle
01/15/26The Cerebellum : 995
The cerebellum also seems to amplify motor impulses.
increases voltage?
01/15/26The Cerebellum : 995
The oculo-vestibular reflex has been studied extensively in this connection. Normally, the eyes turn right when the head is turned left by the experimenter. Test subjects were fitted with reversing prisms so that objects seemed to move to the left when the head was turned to the right. The vestibulo-ocular reflex of turning the eyes to the left when the head is turned to the right exaggerated the effect of the prism. But in a few days, the subjects adapted to the prism so that now the eyes turned in the same direction as the head. Monkeys, rabbits, and cats have shown a similar adaptation.
This sounds like the "inverting goggles" experiment.
Activation Of The Action Circuit
01/15/26Activation Of The Action Circuit : 1009
A thorough computer analysis of the structures and pathways suggested here should add materially to our knowledge.
Transmitter Systems Involved in Hyperactivity
01/15/26Transmitter Systems Involved in Hyperactivity : 1009
Transmitter Systems Involved in Hyperactivity
She does‘nt say ADHD.
01/15/26Transmitter Systems Involved in Hyperactivity : 1011
Since the mesolimbic system is connected with the amygdala (hence the imagination circuit), it is entirely possible that the activation of imagination secondarily produces the increased running about. In animals, images are the precursor of action: food, mate, and enemies, are all potent goals, which might explain the incessant scurrying about.
ADHD
Sleep, Relaxation.
01/15/26Sleep, Relaxation. : 1016
Neither imagination nor recall is active during slow wave sleep.
01/15/26Sleep, Relaxation. : 1016
Methods of relaxation leading to sleep are often aimed at the inhibition of psychological activity; that is, of appraisal, memory, and imagination.
01/15/26Sleep, Relaxation. : 1016
Sleep can be restored immediately by a small dose of tryptophan, the precursor of sertonin (Jouvet, 1974).
What’s in turkey?
01/15/26Sleep, Relaxation. : 1016
Destruction of the basal forebrain in cats has resulted in sleeplessness that sometimes led to death
wow, and cats sleep 20h/day
01/15/26Sleep, Relaxation. : 1017
training in muscular relaxation has been achieved by an ingenious feedback arrangement. A contact on the subject's forehead indicates by a steady tone that the frontalis muscle is tense; the subject is instructed to stop the sound. After a few sessions, most people lower their frontalis electromyogram (EMG) level by 50% or more. When the tone stops, they have achieved such profound relaxation that sleep is not far off (Stoyva & Budzynski, 1974).
Cure of insomnia?
01/15/26Sleep, Relaxation. : 1018
a person can arrest his muscular activity and produce EEG synchronization voluntarily
01/15/26Sleep, Relaxation. : 1024
the firing rate of midbrain reticular neurons increased 2–8 seconds before waking and during D sleep, which seems to indicate that it is their activity that brings about both EEG arousal and waking.
01/15/26Sleep, Relaxation. : 1025
the lesioned cats can act out their dreams, which intact animals cannot do because of the motor inhibition in D sleep.
sleepwalking
01/15/26Sleep, Relaxation. : 1029
either natural or artificial reticular stimulation seems necessary for storage; and D sleep implies brain activation
Lesion Effects
01/15/26Lesion Effects : 1044
imagination and memory can influence the hypothalamus and so determine the actions that lead to eating or drinking
Rewarding Brain Stimulation
01/15/26Rewarding Brain Stimulation : 1054
noradrenaline fibers mediate the impulse to eat, cholinergic fibers mediate the impulse to drink
interesting there are two types of neurotransmitters for food vs. drink
The Cholinergic Memory Circuit
01/16/26The Cholinergic Memory Circuit : 1063
lateral hypothalamic stimulation facilitates learning over a cholinergic pathway
01/16/26The Cholinergic Memory Circuit : 1063
application of carbachol to the lateral hypothalamus of rats trained to avoid shock by turning a wheel greatly facilitated their performance while the application of atropine (cholinergic blocking agent) impaired it.
chemicals that affect learning
Lesion Effects
01/16/26Lesion Effects : 1066
the only satisfaction these animals can obtain in eating is from the taste of food.
The Basal Ganglia
01/20/26The Basal Ganglia : 1097
Intense activity in the imagination circuit may also account for the visual, auditory, and tactual hallucinations of schizophrenics: the amygdala projects not only to the frontal cortex but also to sensory memory areas.
Projection to the Frontal Lobe
01/20/26Projection to the Frontal Lobe : 1124
With the last link of the action circuit, the sequence from sensory experience to overt action has reached its end. Sensory experience, complemented by imagination and memory, begins the sequence; the appraisal of the situation, supported by affective sensory and motor memory, leads to an action impulse organized and integrated in hippocampus and cerebellum; via the action, motor imagination and motor memory circuits, this impulse finally is expressed in action. While it is neither possible nor desirable to predict the content of our thinking or the action we propose from brain function, it is possible to show that thinking and action are mediated by sequences of neural impulses that can be followed over identifiable pathways and structures.
her overall conclusion (1 ¶ concision!)
References
11/26/25References : 1151
Gorman, A. M., 1961. Recognition memory for nouns as a function of abstractness and frequency. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61, 23–29.
mentions TF-IDF?