Drug inhibition of memory formation in chickens II. Short-term memory

Abstract

1. Memory in day-old-chickens during the first few hours after learning can be made to decline by the prior intracranial injection of two classes of drugs. 2. Sodium pump inhibitors in increasing doses cause increasingly rapid loss of memory. 3. Protein synthesis inhibitors in increasing doses attain a maximum potency in causing memory decline and the rate may not be further accelerated by higher doses. 4. Adding a sodium pump inhibitor to the inhibition of protein synthesis increases memory loss. 5. Adding a protein synthesis inhibitor to a sodium pump inhibitor causes no further loss. 6. Therefore within a few minutes of learning a short-term memory of limited time span but independent of protein synthesis becomes supplemented and eventually replaced by a long-term storage requiring protein synthesis. The amount of long-term store is set by the amount of short-term memory. 7. The short-term store could be directly dependent on post-activation enhancement of Na$^{+}$ extrusion from neurons. Some physiological mechanisms by which this could be achieved and how this might activate protein synthesis are discussed.