Primary storage is a category of computer storage, often called main memory. Confusingly, the term primary storage has recently been used in a few contexts to refer to online storage (hard disk), which is usually classified as secondary storage.
Primary storage is used to store data that is likely to be in active use, so it is usually faster than long-term secondary storage. Today, many computers have cache memory located in between the central processing unit and primary storage in order to further increase speed.
A particular location in storage is selected by its physical memory address. That address remains the same, no matter how the particular value stored there changes.
Over the history of computing, a variety of technologies have been used for primary storage. Today, we are most familiar with random access memory (RAM) made out of many small integrated circuits. Some early computers used mercury delay lines, in which a series of acoustic pulses were sent along a tube filled with mercury. When the pulse reached the end of the tube, the circuitry detected whether the pulse represented a binary 1 or 0 and caused the oscillator at the beginning of the line to repeat the pulse. Other early computers stored RAM on high-speed magneticdrums.
Primary storage, or internal memory, is computer memory that is accessible to the central processing unit of a computer without the use of computer's input/output channels.
Primary storage is typically very fast, in the case of RAM which is also volatile, losing the stored information in an event of power loss, and quite expensive.
Primary storage may include several types of storage, such as main storage, cache memory, and special registers, all of which can be directly accessed by the processor.
A method for improving primarymemory or learning in a mammal comprising administering a 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor agonist which is selective for the 5-hydroxytryptamine-1A receptor subtype, or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof.
Accordingly, one preferred embodiment of the invention relates to a method for improving primarymemory or learning in a mammal, comprising administering to a mammal in need of improvement of primarymemory or learning a selective 5-HT.sub.1A agonist, or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, at a dose which is effective to improve memory or learning.
Primarymemory involves the memory of a few informational bits for a few seconds to a minute or more at a time.
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