Failure of piracetam to facilitate acquisition or retention in younger or older rats.

The performance of Long-Evans hooded rats of two age groups (450 and 75 days) was observed in open field activity, one-way active avoidance, and passive avoidance conditioning. One-half of the subjects in each group were administered 100 mg/kg of piracetam two hours prior to all testing trials. Younger rats required fewer acquisition trials to reach active avoidance criterion and made more active avoidances on 7-day retention tests than did older rats. Thus, younger rats performed better on both acquisition and retention of active and passive avoidance conditioning. Piracetam did not produce significant behavioral changes in any of the groups on any of the tasks. Neither age nor piracetam was shown to affect activity.