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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

recognition memory performance, hippocampus, MTL cortex

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Regions of the brain, such as the medial temporal lobe (MTL), including the hippocampus and the adjacent MTL cortex, facilitate recognition memory performance (Squire, Stark, & Clark, 2004). The hippocampus is known for its ability to encode and retrieve memories through two processes called pattern separation and pattern completion (Mcclelland, Mcnaughton, & Oreilly, 1995). Pattern separation is a computational process in which the memory representations of similar stimuli are made as dissimilar as possible. This allows one to recall differences between old stimuli and similar, but novel stimuli. Pattern completion is a computational process where a memory representation is retrieved by a degraded or particle cue. This process may result in an old stimulus being recalled but the differences between the old and the similar not being registered. In separate research it was found that the neurotransmitter dopamine is involved in the role of memory acquisition (Apitz & Bunzeck, 2013; El- Ghundi, O’Dowd, & George, 2007). However, there are no data bearing upon the role of dopamine in the processes of pattern separation and pattern completion.

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