Skip to content

References: Learning, Memory, and Neuroplasticity

  1. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2000: Press release - NobelPrize.org - The official announcement of the prize shared by Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard, and Eric Kandel. Its Kandel section explains, in plain language, how sea slug synapses store short-term and long-term memories.

  2. Eric R. Kandel: Nobel Lecture, "The Molecular Biology of Memory Storage: A Dialog between Genes and Synapses" - NobelPrize.org - Kandel's own account of the Aplysia experiments. It's challenging reading, but motivated students will see how a career-long research program unfolds.

  3. The molecular biology of memory: cAMP, PKA, CRE, CREB-1, CREB-2, and CPEB - Kandel, Molecular Brain (2012), PubMed Central - A free review of how habituation and sensitization change the sensory-to-motor synapse, and how long-term memory needs new proteins and new synapses. It's the source for the chapter's synapse-counting results.

  4. The Legacy of Patient H.M. for Neuroscience - Squire, Neuron (2009), PubMed Central - A clear, readable history of what five decades of testing H.M. taught scientists about memory systems, including the mirror-drawing experiment. It's the best single article on the case.

  5. Loss of Recent Memory After Bilateral Hippocampal Lesions - Scoville & Milner, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry (1957), PubMed Central - The original 1957 report describing the memory loss that followed H.M.'s operation. Reading even the first pages shows what a landmark clinical paper looks like.

  6. Postmortem examination of patient H.M.'s brain based on histological sectioning and digital 3D reconstruction - Annese et al., Nature Communications (2014) - The open-access study that sliced and digitally rebuilt H.M.'s brain. It shows which parts of his hippocampus were actually removed and which survived.

  7. 18.1 Memory is Classified Based on Time Course and Type of Information Stored - OpenStax, Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) - A free textbook section on short-term, working, and long-term memory, consolidation, and reconsolidation. It's a good next step after this chapter.

  8. 18.4 Synaptic Mechanisms of Long-Term Memory - OpenStax, Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) - Explains LTP, LTD, NMDA and AMPA receptors, and the Bliss and Lømo experiment in more depth, with helpful diagrams.

  9. The right time to learn: mechanisms and optimization of spaced learning - Smolen, Zhang & Byrne, Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2016), PubMed Central - A review of why spaced training beats massed training, from sea slugs to people. It connects study habits directly to cell biology.

  10. Epilepsy and Seizures - National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) - The NIH overview of epilepsy, including the hippocampus's role in temporal lobe epilepsy and how modern epilepsy surgery works. It shows how medicine changed after H.M.