Short- and long-term memory: differential involvement of neurotransmitter systems and signal transduction cascades

• Autor(a) principal: VIANNA,MÔNICA R.M.
• Data de Publicação: 2000
• Outros Autores: IZQUIERDO,LUCIANA A., BARROS,DANIELA M., WALZ,ROGER, MEDINA,JORGE H., IZQUIERDO,IVÁN
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0001-37652000000300009
• topic: Short-term memory; long-term memory; hippocampus; PKA; PKC; MAPK

Since William James (1890) first distinguished primary from secondary memory, equivalent to short- and long-term memory, respectively, it has been assumed that short-term memory processes are in charge of cognition while long-term memory is being consolidated. From those days a major question has been whether short-term memory is merely a initial phase of long-term memory, or a separate phenomena. Recent experiments have shown that many treatments with specific molecular actions given into the hippocampus and related brain areas after one-trial avoidance learning can effectively cancel short-term memory without affecting long-term memory formation. This shows that short-term memory and long-term memory involve separate mechanisms and are independently processed. Other treatments, however, influence both memory types similarly, suggesting links between both at the receptor and at the post-receptor level, which should not be surprising as they both deal with nearly the same sensorimotor representations. This review examines recent advances in short- and long-term memory mechanisms based on the effect of intra-hippocampal infusion of drugs acting upon neurotransmitter and signal transduction systems on both memory types.