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Scopolamine Induced Amnesia is Reversed by Bacopa monniera Through Participation of Kinase-CREB Pathway

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Abstract

Scopolamine, an anticholinergic drug, is reported to produce amnesia by interference of long term potentiation and has been used for discerning the efficacy of various antiamnesic drugs. The intoxication with anticholinergics and benzodiazepines tend to produce neurodegeneration which cause memory deficits. Our earlier reports have shown the antiamnesic drug, B. monniera to be capable of alleviating diazepam induced memory deficits. We have now tested how scopolamine affects downstream signaling molecules of long term potentiation and if B. monniera can also modulate the scopolamine induced amnesia. We used Morris water maze scale to test the amnesic effect of scopolamine and its reversal by B. monniera. Rota-rod test was used to screen muscle coordination activity of mice before water maze investigations were carried out. The results showed that scopolamine downregulated protein kinase C and iNOS without affecting cAMP, protein kinase A, calmodulin, MAP kinase, nitrite, CREB and pCREB. B. monniera reversed the scopolamine induced amnesia by significantly improving calmodulin and by partially attenuating protein kinase C and pCREB. These observations suggest involvement of calmodulin in evoking antiamnesic effects of B. monniera.

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Acknowledgments

The work was partially supported by Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi (India) (No. BT/PR3533/Med/12/152/2002). The authors wish to thank Dr. Nusrat and Dr. S Sharma for valuable discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neuroscience Research Lab, Department of Neurology, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Sector-12, Chandigarh, 160012, India

    Manish Kumar Saraf, Akshay Anand & Sudesh Prabhakar

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  1. Manish Kumar Saraf
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  2. Akshay Anand
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  3. Sudesh Prabhakar
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Correspondence to Sudesh Prabhakar.

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Manish Kumar Saraf and Akshay Anand are equal authors.

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Saraf, M.K., Anand, A. & Prabhakar, S. Scopolamine Induced Amnesia is Reversed by Bacopa monniera Through Participation of Kinase-CREB Pathway. Neurochem Res 35, 279–287 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-009-0051-4

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