Long-term effects of cholinergic agonists on memory.

Animal models provide important information about strategies that can be used to assess the effects of chronic exposure to drugs or other compounds. Furthermore, when used in conjunction with analyses designed to utilize the many advantages of animal models to examine learning and memory, these kinds of experiments can have significant ramifications for assessing the mnemonic effects of chronic drug use in people. Finally, given that aging is accompanied by significant deterioration of neurochemical systems, which may compromise the functions of those systems, the results from the experiments with DFP predict that changes in learning and memory abilities that are not apparent in young individuals may begin to surface as those individuals age or may appear following any other kind of insult to their nervous system.