Authors: Ana Paula Chiapinotto Ceretta Keli Camera Carlos Fernando Mello Maribel Antonello Rubin
Publish Date: 2008/08/30
Volume: 201, Issue: 3, Pages: 405-411
Abstract
The polyamines putrescine spermidine and spermine are a group of aliphatic amines that may act as physiological modulators of the Nmethyldaspartate NMDA receptor a glutamate receptor implicated in memory formation and consolidation Arcaine is a competitive antagonist of the polyamine binding site at the NMDA receptor the posttraining administration of which impairs memory of various tasksIn this study we investigated whether the administration of arcaine and MK801 alters the memory of the stepdown inhibitory avoidance task and whether the effects of these NMDA antagonists involve statedependency mechanisms in adult male Wistar ratsThe administration of arcaine 30 mg/kg ip or MK801 003 mg/kg ip immediately after training impaired inhibitory avoidance performance at testing Arcaine and MK801induced performance impairment was reversed by the administration of arcaine 30 mg/kg ip and MK801 003 mg/kg ip respectively 30 min before testing Response transfer also occurred if arcaine substituted MK801 at testing and viceversaThese results suggest that arcaine and MK801 induce statedependent recall and that probably due to their ability to decrease NMDA receptor function one drug can substitute for the other at testing demonstrating a crossstate dependency between arcaine and MK801The authors thank Dr Juliano Ferreira for the helpful suggestions and Paulino Aguiar and Rinaldo Moreira for competent technical support This study was supported by CNPq 475131/045 477836/20070 K Camera is recipient of a CAPES fellowship CF Mello and MA Rubin are recipients of CNPq productivity fellowships 500120/20030 500096/20031 301558/20078 All the experiments complied with the current laws of Brazil
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