The effects of physostigmine and scopolamine on recognition memory in monkeys

The visual recognition of rhesus monkeys was evaluated by means of a delayed nonmatching-to-sample task with trial-unique objects. Each daily session consisted of two lists of 20 objects each, which untreated animals were able to recognize at approximately 75% accuracy. When they were performing at this level reliably, doses of physostigmine (0.32, 1.0, 3.2, 10.0, 32.0, 56.0 micrograms/kg), scopolamine (1.0, 3.2, 5.6, 10.0, 17.8, 32.0 micrograms/kg), or saline were administered 20 min prior to the session. Physostigmine and scopolamine produced dose-related increases and decreases, respectively, in the number of objects correctly remembered. The systematic changes in performance support the view that cholinergic mechanisms contribute to recognition memory and suggest that tasks with trial-unique objects may be particularly useful for studying the mnemonic effects of cholinergic drugs.