Partial or total loss of memory.

Neurotrophic factor that stimulates neurons to grow dendrites and synapses and in some cases promotes the survival of neurons.

Unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), such as salivation when food is in the mouth.

In Pavlovian conditioning, the learned response to a formerly neutral conditioned stimulus (CS).

Long-lasting decrease in synaptic effectiveness after low-frequency electrical stimulation.

Ability to recall a movement sequence or how to perform some act or behavior.

Linkage of two or more unrelated stimuli to elicit a behavioral response.

Learning achieved when neutral stimulus (such as a tone) comes to elicit a response after its repeated pairing with some event (such as delivery of food); also called classical conditioning or respondent conditioning.

Damage to the brain that results from a blow to the head.

Ability to recount what one knows, to detail the time, place, and circumstances of events; often lost in amnesia.

Escalating behavioral response to the repeated administration of a psychomotor stimulant such as amphetamine, cocaine, or nicotine; also called drug-induced behavioral sensitization.

Memory for the affective properties of stimuli or events.

A stimulus that naturally and automatically (unconditionally) triggers an unconditioned response (UCR).

Use of visual information to recall an object’s location in space.

Located on the medial temporal lobe surface; provides a major route for neocortical input to the hippocampal formation; often degenerates in Alzheimer disease.

Inability to remember events that took place before the onset of amnesia.

Autobiographical memory for events pegged to specific place and time contexts.

Conscious memory: subjects can retrieve an item and indicate that they know the retrieved item is the correct one.

Process of restabilizing a memory trace after the memory is revisited.

Long-lasting increase in synaptic effectiveness after high-frequency stimulation.

Cortex lying next to the rhinal fissure on the ventral surface of the brain.

Conditioned emotional response between a neutral stimulus and an unpleasant event, such as a shock, that results in a learned association.

Neurotrophic factor; stimulates the subventricular zone to generate cells that migrate into the striatum and eventually differentiate into neurons and glia.

Ability to recall or recognize previous experience.

Cortex located along the dorsal medial temporal lobe surface.

Experimental technique in which subjects learn to pair a formerly neutral stimulus with a defensive blinking response.

Permanent loss of the ability to learn new information (anterograde amnesia) and to retrieve old information (retrograde amnesia) caused by diencephalic damage resulting from chronic alcoholism or malnutrition that produces a vitamin B₁ deficiency.

Interaction among different plastic changes in the brain.

In Pavlovian conditioning, an originally neutral stimulus that after association with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) triggers a conditioned response (CR).

Area of incomplete necrosis (dead tissue) consisting of a central protein core (amyloid) surrounded by degenerative cellular fragments; often seen in the cortex of people with dementias such as Alzheimer disease.

Inability to remember events subsequent to a disturbance of the brain such as head trauma, electroconvulsive shock, or neurodegenerative disease.

Rules of the game; implicit understanding of how a problem can be solved with a rule that can be applied in many different situations.

Unconscious memory: subjects can demonstrate knowledge, such as a skill, conditioned response, or recall of events on prompting but cannot explicitly retrieve the information.

Process of stabilizing a memory trace after learning.

Impairment in learning to read and write; probably the most common learning disability.

Learning procedure in which the consequences (such as obtaining a reward) of a particular behavior (such as pressing a bar) increase or decrease the probability of the behavior occurring again; also called instrumental conditioning.

Relatively permanent change in behavior that results from experience.

Using a stimulus to sensitize the nervous system to a later presentation of the same or a similar stimulus.