Neural Pathways to
Long term memory
Presented by: Gerald Lai, Scott Nisbitt, Ed Fong, Phat Ha

Research into the neurological basis of long term memory generally involves studying those individuals who have had their brain structures altered in some way. Also, because it is considered unethical to knowingly induce brain damage on a human researchers often use animal models to directly study cause-effect relationships.

With modern equipment, such as, MRI, CAT, and PET scans, brain damage can be localised with much more precision than previously possible. These tests, however, only reveal the biological and pathological nature of the brain trauma and not the functional characteristic of that affected region. In order to determine the function of a damaged region researchers often have individuals, with a known patholgy of the brain, perform memory tasks which are thought to require the use of a certain type of long term memory store. As an example, performance in realtime tracking in a task such as rotary pursuit is seen to improve in individuals who are unable to access other areas of the long term memory. By determining what the individual can and cannot do with their damaged brain researchers are able to infer what role a particular area of the brain plays in long term memory.