8-OH-DPAT facilitated memory consolidation and increased hippocampal and cortical cAMP production

Animals were submitted to an associative learning task named Pavlovian/instrumental autoshaping (P/I-A) and treated with selective 5-HT1A and 5-HT7 receptor agonists and antagonists. Next, they were sacrificed, their brains removed, dissected and changes on cortical and hippocampal cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) production were determined. Results revealed that, the 8-OH-DPAT treatment facilitated memory consolidation of autoshaping and that effect was blocked completely by WAY100635 and partially by DR4004. WAY100635 or DR4004 alone had no effect on autoshaping. The cAMP results were complex and yielded no clear relationship to the memory results. Thus, cortical and hippocampal increased on cAMP production was observed following administration of the 5-HT(1A/7) agonist 8-OH-DPAT. The memory effect was, completely or partially, reversed by the selective antagonists WAY100635 (5-HT1A) or DR4004 (5-HT7), respectively.