Explain how biological factors may affect one

cognitive process

Command term: Explain-give a detailed account including reasons and causes

SAQ only

Points to remember:

• The cognitive process we will focus on is memory.

• The focus of the response should be biological factors.

• The learning outcome demands that two different factors are included in the response.

Background informationMemory is the job of the brain. There are still many mysteries about the biological structures that control and organise memory. Cognitive researchers and neuroscientists work together to find out how brain structures are involved in memory processes.

Neuroscientists have studied memory in different ways. Before modern technology they could do post-mortem studies, stimulate certain brain areas during an operation, study cases of people with brain damage and do experimental work with animals.

Specifically, neuroscientists could study ways in which memory processes were disrupted by measuring the effects of experimental lesions in non-human animals and accidental brain damage in humans.

Background information

With the advent of modern technology researchers have new ways to study memory processes in the living brain. Different scanning techniques such as PET (Positron Emission Topography) and MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans now permit us to study brain regions which are active under particular conditions of learning and memory formation in both healthy and damaged brains.

To summarise, knowledge of the biological structures involved in memory comes from case studies, experimental research, animal research, and scanner studies.

Basic brain structure

Homework: Make a model of the brain.

Use the diagrams on Murphology to help you.

The two factors we will study:

Factor 1: Damage to the hippocampus and amnesia.

Factor 2: The role of Acetylcholine in Alzheimer’s disease (AD).