Brain and MemoryModulation and Mediation of Neuroplasticity

Abstract

Abstract This book looks at what we have learned over the last century in attempting to discover how the brain enables us to acquire, retain, and use information based on experiences. The major central questions posed in the book are: What processes underlie the formation of new memories? What processes determine the strength of memories? Where are the changes underlying memory located? The chapters in this book review recent progress in research investigating emotion and memory, aging and memory, plasticity of the cerebral cortex, and synaptic connectivity and memory. William James, Ivan Pavlov, Karl Lashley, Donald Hebb, and the other pioneers in this field would, of course, find these topics familiar. But they would also find that in recent years these topics have been investigated in unexpected ways and that the findings have greatly expanded the questions that can be asked as well as the experimental techniques that can be employed.