Aplysi Emricist And Rationalist Views Of Mind

Neither field could resolve conflict between the empiricist and rationalist views of mind as long as the resolution required a direct examinitation of the brain. (201). Kandel knew to fully comprehend and acquire information from an idea as complex as memory he had to use the “reduction strategy” (144) , to get a basic understanding of the topic and he simplify his research to a molecular level and he chose a simpler organism name Aplysia to due his experiment on. Kandel was advised strongly not tot do so by a senior scientist name John Eccles. Kandel then the huge decision of his career, he stood by his belief and follow his passion. Kandel and his wife then move to Paris to study with Ladislav Tauc who has the only person in the world who
Learning leads to a change in the strength of synaptic connections and also strengthen the communication between the nerve cells that help a certain behavior. A set of synaptic connections between two neurons can be modified or altered in either way, strengthened or weakened and its all based on the type of learning. Kandel uses three types of learning, habituation sensitization and classical conditioning. Habituation is the way that an organism can be accustomed to a stimulus through repetition. Habituation is the most important idea he used on his Aplysia. Sensitization is when an organism become aware of a stimulus, and we are sensitive towards. Classical conditioning occurs when an organism learned that two stimuli are contigious. This idea was best explained by Pavlov experiment with the dog and the bell. Every time the dog hears the bell, it started to salivate even when there was no meal present. When the changes occur in several sites in the neural circuitry, memory is then distributed and stored throughout the circuit and not to a specific site. In all three form of the learning memory, the duration of the memory depends on how long the synapse was strengthened or weakened. Chemical synapse can be modified or altered in two ways, it depends on which two neural circuit is used either mediating or modulatory
Short term memory is the “first stage and it gradually transfer into long term memory, that it does so through repetition” (206). Practice makes perfect which goes by to John Locke ideas. During short-term memory, new neurons don’t develop, they just adapt or adjust to the neurons that were already there. The process by which primary memory is converted to secondary memory is called consolidation. The terms primary memory and secondary memory were constructed by William James and Hermann Ebbinghaus. There are also two types of memory, implicit and explicit. Implicit or short term memory involves information that we do unconsciously, like how to tie a shoe lace or how to brush our teeth. These actions are done with us being unaware, like the gill-withdraw of the Aplysia. Implicit memory is used in reflexive motor. Explicit memory or long term memory is knowledge of places, people, facts or things. You have to have consciousness to have explicit memory, which you mean you have to move through time and space to retrieve the information. This goes back to the work Wilner did on HM, “complex, explicit memory, long term memory- a memory lasting days to years requires not only the cortex but the hippocampus” (213). HM had his hippocampus removed and he couldn’t not consolidate the information through long term memory but he has memories of events that exist before his surgery.