Effects of Drugs on Learning and Memory

This chapter summarizes the representative studies of the effects of drugs on learning and memory in infrahumans and indicates that many of the compounds influence learning by affecting the processes involved in memory storage.

Abstract

This chapter summarizes the representative studies of the effects of drugs on learning and memory in infrahumans. It emphasizes research concerned with the bases of drug-effects on learning and memory and relevance of the findings to current concepts of memory storage mechanisms. The studies reviewed in the chapter provide clear evidence that drugs can influence learning. The results of the studies using post trial injections indicate that many of the compounds influence learning by affecting the processes involved in memory storage. Other compounds seem to affect performance by modifying attentional, perceptual, or motivational processes. The evidence provided by studies of drug-effects on learning is consistent with other evidence that memory storage involves processes that are active for some time after the termination of an experience. Memory storage time, as measured in this way is found to depend upon a variety of conditions including age, sex, strain, species, and specific training procedures. Drugs affect learning by directly modifying the specific processes involved in the formation of prominent traces. Whatever the nature of the processes involved in the storage of information in the nervous system, drugs will undoubtedly continue to be important tools in research leading to the discovery of the nature of the processes.