Final Lessons

My last day of teaching focused on memory and learning and consciousness.  First, I discussed early experiments to investigate learning such as Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiments and B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning.  I mentioned the different types of memory (sensory, short term and long term memory) and the importance of the hippocampus to get short term memories into long term memories.

I also showed a picture of an Aplysia, the animal that was used by Eric Kandel to demonstrate how neurons change when learning occurs.  No discussion of memory is complete without a description of “HM,” the patient who suffered from anterograde amnesia after his hippocampus and surrounding brain were removed during surgery for epilepsy.  This discussion helped the monks understand the importance of the hippocampus in the consolidation of memory.

To illustrate various principles of memory, we played some memory games.  For example, I had the translator read a list of words associated with “sleep”, but the list did not include the word sleep.  When I asked how many people remembered “sleep,” almost all of the monks said that “sleep” was on the list.  This demonstration showed how false memories could be introduced and that memory is not like a event recorded on tape.  We also played the “Who’s Missing” game where the monks formed a circle with one monk blindfolded in the middle.  Another monk left the room and the blindfolded monk had to identify who left the room.  Finally, we demonstrated learning of space by blindfolding one monk and placing a ball in the middle of a large circle.  We timed how long it took for the monk to find the ball.   We placed the ball back in the same location and had the monk find the ball again.  It was easy to see how a mental map was formed because it took less and less time to find the ball each time the monk tried to find the ball.

 

After tea, our discussion turned to consciousness.  I approached consciousness by talking about sleep, hypnosis and drugs.  Most of my talk focused on sleep and dreaming, but I was able to dispel some myths about hypnosis and introduce the mechanisms by which drugs affect the brain.  But to be honest, this presentation was rushed because I had little time.

At the end of my last presentation, I thanked the monks for the opportunity to come to India.  As a show of my appreciation, I offered them a small treat I brought from Seattle:  applets and cotlets candies! 

That afternoon, we all gathered outside for photos...lots of photos.