Effects of puromycin on memory for shuttle box extinction in goldfish and barpress extinction in rats

Five experiments were conducted to investigated the generality of puromycin's reported effect on disruption on memory of a recently learned task. The first experiment replicated previous work on acquisition to determine the effectiveness of the procedures used. The second investigated the role of puromycin's low pH in memory disruption. The third experiment used short training and extinction sessions to determine if puromycin retarded retention of extinction. The fourth experiment used longer training and extinction sessions and multiple and delayed injections of puromycin, and the fifth experiment attempted to extend puromycin's effect on avoidance extinction to extinction produced in an appetitive operant task. Puromycin disrupted retention of extinction of both shuttle box avoidance in fish and barpressing in rats. The role of puromycin's pH was negligible.