title: Memantine affects cognitive flexibility in the Morris water maze.
abstract: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is multi-factorial mental disorder characterized by a copious array of congruent features cumulating in disrupted memory and dysthymia. Though the mechanism remains elusive, the highly unspecific pharmaceutical, memantine, provides modest benefits for patients with moderate-to-severe AD. A greater understanding of how memantine affects cognitive function promises to facilitate the search for better therapeutics. We therefore examined cognitive flexibility of mice following 5 and 10 mg/kg memantine administration using a platform re-location water maze. Strikingly, subjects receiving memantine demonstrated memory impairment relative to controls when re-trained off drug, revealing a novel and unusual disruption of cognitive flexibility.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, Program in Neuroscience, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. saab@hifo.uzh.ch
authors.forename: Bechara J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Saab
authors.forename: Ruxandra M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Luca
authors.forename: Wing B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Yuen
authors.forename: Adam M P
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Saab
authors.forename: John C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Roder
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003071:Cognition / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D008559:Memantine / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000139:chemically induced; D051379:Mice; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D008559:Memantine