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Learning and Memory

This chapter addresses the process of learning and memory in the animal and human brain. Learning is central to the development of a child into an adult, but also to the progression of human culture over time. But the ability to learn is also bound up with the capacity to remember. Speculation about the nature of human memory stretches back at least 2,400 years to Plato's attempts to understand this process. However, the eighteenth century English philosopher David Hartley was the first to link memories to the nervous system. While changes to the synaptic structure of a neuron clearly play an important role in the initial formation of memories, there is increasing evidence that altered expression of genes underpins long-term memory formation. The chapter then considers the role of the hippocampus in memory. The dynamic interaction of the hippocampus and the cortex may be key to the ability of the brain to form new associations between people, places, and objects.