Contribute to the Biological Basis of Individuality

Throughout this book we have emphasized that all behavior is a function of the brain and that malfunctions of the brain produce characteristic disturbances of behavior. Behavior is also shaped by experience. How does experience act on the neural circuits of the brain to change behavior? How is new information acquired by the brain and, once acquired, how is it remembered? In the previous chapter we saw that memory is not a single process but has at least two major forms. Implicit memory operates unconsciously and automatically, as in the memory for habits and perceptual and motor skills, whereas explicit memory operates consciously, as in the memory for people, places, and objects. Long-term storage of explicit memory begins in the hippoc-ampus and the medial temporal lobe of the neocortex, whereas long-term storage of implicit memory require