GLUCOSE ENHANCEMENT OF 24-H MEMORY RETRIEVAL IN HEALTHY ELDERLY HUMANS

When administered soon before or after training, glucose facilitates m emory in rodents and in several populations of humans, including healt hy elderly people. Thus, glucose appears to enhance memory formation i n a time- and dose-dependent manner. By assessing the effects of gluco se at the time of memory tests, the present experiment examined the ro le of glucose on memory retrieval in healthy elderly people. On four s essions separated by a week, glucose or saccharin were administered im mediately before hearing a narrative prose passage, as in previous exp eriments, or immediately before being tested for recall of the passage (24 h after training). Subjects recalled significantly more informati on after glucose ingestion than after saccharin ingestion whether the glucose was given before acquisition or memory tests. In addition, rec all was significantly better in the preacquisition glucose condition r elative to recall in the retrieval glucose condition. These findings p rovide evidence that glucose enhances both memory storage and retrieva l. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.