Authors: John B Hogan Donald B Hodges Snjezana Lelas Paul J Gilligan John F McElroy Mark D Lindner
Publish Date: 2004/10/14
Volume: 178, Issue: 4, Pages: 410-419
Abstract
Benzodiazepines continue to be widely used for the treatment of anxiety but it is well known that benzodiazepines have undesirable side effects including sedation ataxia cognitive deficits and the risk of addiction and abuse CRF1 receptor antagonists are being developed as potential novel anxiolytics but while CRF1 receptor antagonists seem to have a better sideeffect profile than benzodiazepines with respect to sedation and ataxia the effects of CRF1 receptor antagonists on cognitive function have not been well characterized It is somewhat surprising that the potential cognitive effects of CRF1 receptor antagonists have not been more fully characterized since there is some evidence to suggest that these compounds may impair cognitive functionThe Morris water maze and the delayed nonmatching to position test are sensitive tests of a range of cognitive functions including spatial learning attention and shortterm memory so the objective of the present experiments was to assess the effects of benzodiazepines and CRF1 receptor antagonists in these testsThe benzodiazepines chlordiazepoxide and alprazolam disrupted performance in the Morris water maze and delayed nonmatching to position at doses close to their therapeutic anxiolytic doses In contrast the CRF1 receptor antagonists DMP904 and DMP696 produced little or no impairment in the Morris water maze or delayed nonmatching to position test even at doses 10fold higher than were necessary to produce anxiolytic effects
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