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The Role of NMDA Receptor Subunits in the Effect of Memantine on the Brain of Healthy Animals

  • BIOPHYSICS AND BIOCHEMISTRY
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Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine Aims and scope

The non-competitive NMDA glutamate receptor antagonist memantine has neuroprotective properties and is the first non-cholinergic drug approved for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The purpose of this work was to test the hypothesis that injections of memantine to healthy animals can affect the subunit composition of NMDA receptors in the brain, which may explain the effects of its chronic administration. For this, the expression of subunits GluN1, GluN2A, GluN2B, and GluN2C was studied in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of rats after single or five subchronic injections of memantine. The results showed that the GluN2C subunit (GRIN2C) plays an important role in the effects of memantine; against the background of memantine treatment, the expression of this subunit markedly decreased in the prefrontal cortex, but not in the hippocampus, which significantly affected the excitation/inhibition balance in cortical structures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushchino, Moscow region, Russia

    V. I. Arkhipov, I. Yu. Chernomorets, N. S. Zhuikova, D. A. Fedorov & E. V. Pershina

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  1. V. I. Arkhipov
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  2. I. Yu. Chernomorets
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  3. N. S. Zhuikova
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  4. D. A. Fedorov
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  5. E. V. Pershina
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Correspondence to V. I. Arkhipov.

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Translated from Byulleten’ Eksperimental’noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 175, No. 4, pp. 441-445, April, 2023

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Arkhipov, V.I., Chernomorets, I.Y., Zhuikova, N.S. et al. The Role of NMDA Receptor Subunits in the Effect of Memantine on the Brain of Healthy Animals. Bull Exp Biol Med 175, 446–449 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10517-023-05882-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10517-023-05882-3

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