Post-trial hormonal treatment effects: memory modulation or perceptual distortion?
An extensive literature has developed in recent years demonstrating that a variety of peripheral-acting hormonal and pharmacological treatments, administered in post-trial learning paradigms, can substantially influence memory. Careful analysis of the effects of such treatments in passive avoidance paradigms has provided evidence for an interaction between these treatments and the hormonal and physiological events triggered by the noxious stimulation used to induce passive avoidance behavior. The argument developed in this paper is that such post-trial manipulations distort the relationship between the intensity of the noxious stimulus and its physiological sequelae. Considered in this light, changes in passive avoidance behavior appear to represent perceptual distortions rather than memory effects, per se. That is, rather than interfering or enhancing memory processes, peripheral hormonal treatments may simply produce distortions in the perceived intensity of the noxious stimulus.
Carey
R J
RJ
S.U.N.Y. Health Science Center, Syracuse.
D000818:Animals; D006728:Hormones / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects*; D010469:Perceptual Distortion / Q000502:physiology*
D006728:Hormones