Recovery of fear memories in rats: role of gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) in infantile amnesia.
Infantile amnesia is a ubiquitous phenomenon, but its neural bases remain largely unknown. The authors identify a role for GABAergic transmission in suppressing retrieval of memories acquired in infancy. Eighteen-day-old rats received pairings of white noise and shock; considerable forgetting of this experience (assessed by freezing) occurred after 10 days. The memory was recovered by pretest administration of the GABAA inverse agonist FG7142 10 days, but not 2 months, after training. This effect of FG7142 generalized when a passive avoidance procedure was used. Also, FG7142 decreased fear of a latently inhibited conditioned stimulus, showing that the observed memory recovery effect was not due to a state-dependent process. It appears that GABA may be involved in infantile amnesia regardless of the emotional content of the memory.
School of PsychologyUniversity of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Jee Hyun
JH
Kim
Gavan P
GP
McNally
Rick
R
Richardson
D000647:Amnesia / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D002243:Carbolines / Q000494:pharmacology; D005239:Fear / Q000187:drug effects*; D018755:GABA Agonists / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D007267:Injections; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000187:drug effects*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D020127:Recovery of Function; D005680:gamma-Aminobutyric Acid / Q000378:metabolism*
D002243:Carbolines; D018755:GABA Agonists; D005680:gamma-Aminobutyric Acid; C035874:FG 7142