LONG-TERM SUPPRESSION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPLEMENTARY MEMORY STORAGE SITES IN MICE - FUNCTIONAL INTERDEPENDENCE OF ACETYLCHOLINE AND DOPAMINE

Bitemporal injections of puromycin consistently induce amnesia of aversive maze learning in mice when given within 3 days after training. These injections consistently fail to induce amnesia when given 6 or more days after training. Consistent with the evidence from other laboratories, we interpret these results to indicate that the initial, temporal memory storage sites are supplemented 6 days after training by the development of complementary storage sites in other cerebral areas. Previous experiments have shown that this process is suppressed for 30-60 days by a single SC injection of scopolamine, a muscarinic antagonist. We now find that this suppressive action of scopolamine can be completely nullified by haloperidol, a dopaminergic antagonist. This finding supports the view that there may be a therapeutic role for dopamine antagonists in the treatment of cognitive dysfunction associated with cholinergic loss.