Memory facilitation and impairment with supraseizure electrical brain stimulation: attenuation with pretrial propranolol injections.

Post-training supraseizure stimulation of frontal cortex enhances retention of active avoidance in rats trained using a low footshock but impairs retention when high footshock is used in training. Pretreatment with the adrenergic antagonist propranolol results in attenuation of both memory facilitation and amnesia. These results are consistent with previous evidence indicating that adrenergic antagonists attenuate amnesia and facilitation produced by a variety of agents and suggest that memory modulatory treatments may enhance or impair memory by actions which include effects on adrenergic systems.