Previous experiments have shown that tianeptine, a new psychotropic agent with antidepressant properties, improves performance in several learning and memory tasks in mice. In more recent investigations, tianeptine was found to completely alleviate working memory deficits produced by long-term alcohol intoxication and to prevent abnormal memory loss in aged animals (Jaffard et al, 1991b, 1991c). The aim of this paper was to examine how this last finding may be integrated in our understanding of brain mechanisms involved in memory loss. For this purpose, we present a brief review of experimental data and theories which, at different levels of analysis, seems to be relevant to this issue. Together with the subsequent examination of the conditions in which tianeptine was found to improve long-term retention, we suggest that: i) long-term memory loss would be largely determined by the initial encoding of information, so that ii) tianeptine would help aged animals to use spatial mapping or configural associations more efficiently at the time of initial acquisition. This, in turn, suggests that one of the main brain target sites for tianeptine in enhancing memory is the hippocampal formation.

We examine two different descriptions of the behavioral functions of the hippocampal system. One emphasizes spatially organized behaviors, especially those using cognitive maps. The other emphasizes memory, particularly working memory, a short-term memory that requires iexible stimulus-response associations and is highly susceptible to interference. The predictive value of the spatial and memory descriptions were evaluated by testing rats with damage to the hippocampal system in a series of experiments, independently manipulating the spatial and memory characteristics of a behavioral task. No dissociations were found when the spatial characteristics of the stimuli to be remembered were changed; lesions produced a similar deficit in both spatial and nonspatial test procedures, indicating that the hippocampus was similarly involved regardless of the spatial nature of the task. In contrast, a marked dissociation was found when the memory requirements were altered. Rats with lesions were able to perform accurately in tasks that could be solved exclusively on the basis of reference memory. They performed at chance levels and showed no signs of recovery even with extensive postoperative training in tasks that required working memory. In one experiment all the characteristics of the reference memory and working memory procedures were identical except the type of memory required. Consequently, the behavioral dissociation cannot be explained by differences in attention, motivation, response inhibition, or the type of stimuli to be remembered. As a result of these experiments we propose that the hippocampus is selectively involved in behaviors that require working memory, irrespective of the type of material (spatial or nonspatial) that is to be processed by that memory.

Artefacts from military bases of the early Roman Empire potentially indicate not only the presence of women and children inside the walls, but also their movements, activities and impact on fort life. This paper explores dynamic approaches to categorizing and gendering artefacts for more holistic investigations of artefact assemblages. It uses GIS mapping techniques to analyse the distribution patterns of ‘gendered’ artefacts within three forts on the German frontier – Vetera I, Ellingen and Oberstimm. It investigates the social significance of these patterns within and between the forts to better understand women's place in this sphere.