Abstract
Ketamine is a noncompetitive antagonist of the NMDA-receptors, used as a dissociative anesthetic, presently included in the category of the psychoactive substances known as “club drugs”. Ketamine administration was associated with impaired working memory and increased psychopathological symptoms, but there is a lack of information regarding the effects of chronic sub-anesthetic doses. Adult Wistar rats were administered ketamine, 5 and 10 mg/kg twice daily, subcutaneously for 14 days. One week later, rats were tested in an object recognition/object location task and in the open field arena. There was altered performance in both the object recognition/location and in the open field tests by the group chronically exposed to the lower dose of ketamine. These animals displayed a decreased discrimination index (p < 0.05) in the object recognition task, were unable to recognize the displacement of a familiar object and displayed decreased activity across open filed sessions. Importantly, these alterations were not observed in animals administered a higher dose of ketamine. Collectively, these results consistently show that chronic administration of ketamine in sub-anesthetic doses may lead to decreased habituation and inability to update spatial representations.
Keywords: Ketamine, spatial recognition; memory, habituation, long-term effects
Current Neuropharmacology
Title: Impaired Spatial Memory after Ketamine Administration in Chronic Low Doses
Volume: 9 Issue: 1
Author(s): C. Venancio, A. Magalhaes, L. Antunes and T. Summavielle
Affiliation:
Keywords: Ketamine, spatial recognition; memory, habituation, long-term effects
Abstract: Ketamine is a noncompetitive antagonist of the NMDA-receptors, used as a dissociative anesthetic, presently included in the category of the psychoactive substances known as “club drugs”. Ketamine administration was associated with impaired working memory and increased psychopathological symptoms, but there is a lack of information regarding the effects of chronic sub-anesthetic doses. Adult Wistar rats were administered ketamine, 5 and 10 mg/kg twice daily, subcutaneously for 14 days. One week later, rats were tested in an object recognition/object location task and in the open field arena. There was altered performance in both the object recognition/location and in the open field tests by the group chronically exposed to the lower dose of ketamine. These animals displayed a decreased discrimination index (p < 0.05) in the object recognition task, were unable to recognize the displacement of a familiar object and displayed decreased activity across open filed sessions. Importantly, these alterations were not observed in animals administered a higher dose of ketamine. Collectively, these results consistently show that chronic administration of ketamine in sub-anesthetic doses may lead to decreased habituation and inability to update spatial representations.
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Cite this article as:
Venancio C., Magalhaes A., Antunes L. and Summavielle T., Impaired Spatial Memory after Ketamine Administration in Chronic Low Doses, Current Neuropharmacology 2011; 9(1) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/157015911795016912
DOI https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/157015911795016912 |
Print ISSN 1570-159X |
Publisher Name Bentham Science Publisher |
Online ISSN 1875-6190 |

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