Brain Neurophysiology and Memory
“What areas of the brain are activated during the process of learning and how does the pattern of activation change as learning proceeds?”  These are the questions that cognitive and behavioral neuroscientists at Rutgers University-Newark and Massachusetts General Hospital (Click here for PDF) ask as they design studies to identify key brain structures that are involved in the learning process.

In the brain, the medial temporal (MT) lobes, including the hippocampus, have long been associated with declarative memory functions such as the systematic acquisition and recollection of facts.  However, the basal ganglia (BG) circuitry is linked to many non-declarative memory functions such as the gradual learning of skills and habits.

Both systems work in concert to allow learners to acquire new information systematically (declarative memory function), and then transform the information into a skill (such as reading) that can be performed automatically (non-declarative memory function).

But what happens when one system is not activated correctly?

Studies by Hurford et al.(1993) examined the development of reading and phonological processing abilities of 1) first graders with known reading disabilities, 2) poor readers with “garden-variety” disabilities, and 3) first-graders without reading disabilities.  The researchers demonstrate that children with known learning disabilities and those with “garden variety” slow learning skills perform similarly on tests.  These students fall behind fast readers, and the gap widens as the year progresses.

Myers et al. (2003) cite numerous research studies involving either the hippocampal region or basal ganglia and conclude that researchers now postulate that each brain system plays distinct and complementary roles in learning and memory.