Electrifying the motor engram: effects of tDCS on motor learning and control.
In brain experiments (1929, 1950), tissue was removed from the cerebral cortices before re-introducing rats to mazes, to see how their memory was affected. Increasingly, the amount of tissue removed degraded memory, but more remarkably, where the tissue was removed from made no difference.
Later, Richard F. Thompson sought the engram in the cerebellum, rather than the cerebral cortex. He used classical conditioning of the eyelid response in rabbits in search of the engram. He puffed air upon the cornea of the eye and paired it with a tone. (This puff normally causes an automatic blinking response. After a number of experiences associating it with a tone, the rabbits became conditioned to blink when they heard the tone even without a puff.) The experiment monitored several brain regions, trying to locate the engram.
Later, Richard F. Thompson sought the engram in the cerebellum, rather than the cerebral cortex. He used classical conditioning of the eyelid response in rabbits in search of the engram. He puffed air upon the cornea of the eye and paired it with a tone. (This puff normally causes an automatic blinking response. After a number of experiences associating it with a tone, the rabbits became conditioned to blink when they heard the tone even without a puff.) The experiment monitored several brain regions, trying to locate the engram.
Kindling (direct energy ) induced in rodents by repeated electrical stimulation of sensitive brain regions demonstrate that structural damage of the brain may lead to spontaneously recurrent convulsions in rats and that kindling may be involved in the evolution of such a condition. This finding suggests that kindling mechanisms underlie the development of epileptic foci from structural brain lesions. Such mechanisms may be involved in the etiology of some forms of epilepsy in humans.
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