Retroactive facilitation of memory in goldfish by flurothyl

✍ Scribed by Walter H. Riege; Arthur Cherkin

• Book ID: 104769322
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1973
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 541 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0033-3158
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00422866

✦ Synopsis

The spontaneous upstream swimming of goldfish (N = 1318) into a quiet well was suppressed in one trial by electric shock (2.0 V/cm). Independent groups of fish, at 25~ retained this learned avoidance 1, 4, 16, and 64 h after training but not 256 h after training. When trained fish were treated, 3 rain after training, with a 16-rain exposure to convulsive solutions of flurothyl (Indoklon~), their retention of avoidance 16, 64, or 256 h later was facilitated. This retroactive facilitation (RF) of long-term memory in goldfish by flurothyl could not be attributed to proaetive or aversive effects of the treatment. Goldfish treated in water saturated with carbon dioxide (80~ C02: 20o/0 02) showed retrograde amnesia (RA).

Neither the RF from flurothyl nor the RA from CO~-treatment were diminished when training and treatment were given to goldfish at 20 ~ or 15~ The memoryenhancing effect of flurothyl convulsions, and its delayed onset, may relate to the dual stimulant-depressant action of the drug and differ from the RA effect reported for mice and chicks.