Selective amnesia in rats produced by electroconvulsive shock.

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Abstract
ECS immediately following 5 sec. of footshock in 1-trial passive avoidance induces amnesia in 208 naive male albino Sprague-Dawley rats but not in animals familiar with the training environment. These findings were replicated and the extent to which familiarization abridged the posttraining interval during which memory was vulnerable was determined. Ss were given 3 5-min familiarization trials after which they received 0-, 5-, 2.5-, or 5-sec footshock followed by immediate delayed, or no ECS. In contrast to nonfamiliarized groups, all familiarized footshocked groups avoided 24 hr. later regardless of ECS condition. In this situation "memory consolidation" apparently occurs in less than .5 sec. and therefore is essentially instantaneous as this interval approaches the conduction times of afferent neural circuits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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