Storage or retrieval deficit: the yin and yang of amnesia.

Abstract

To this day, it remains unresolved whether experimental amnesia reflects failed memory storage or the inability to retrieve otherwise intact memory. Methodological as well as conceptual reasons prevented deciding between these two alternatives: The absence of recovery from amnesia is typically taken as supporting storage impairment interpretations; however, this absence of recovery does not positively demonstrate nonexistence of memory, allowing for alternative interpretations of amnesia as impairment of memory retrieval. To address this shortcoming, we present a novel approach to study the nature of amnesia that makes positive, i.e., falsifiable, predictions for the absence of memory. Applying this paradigm, we demonstrate here that infusing anisomycin into the dorsal hippocampus induces amnesia by impairing memory storage, not retrieval.

• Authors: Oliver Hardt, Szu-Han Wang, Karim Nader
• Journal: Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) (Learn Mem) Vol. 16 Issue 4 Pg. 224-30 (Apr 2009) ISSN: 1549-5485 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 19304892 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Chemical References

• Protein Synthesis Inhibitors
• Anisomycin

Topics

• Amnesia (chemically induced, physiopathology)
• Animals
• Anisomycin (administration & dosage, toxicity)
• Conditioning, Operant (drug effects, physiology)
• Extinction, Psychological (drug effects, physiology)
• Hippocampus (drug effects, physiopathology)
• Injections, Intraventricular
• Male
• Memory (physiology)
• Protein Synthesis Inhibitors (administration & dosage, toxicity)
• Rats
• Rats, Sprague-Dawley