Prevention by minaprine of ischemic neuronal damage and memory impairment in Mongolian gerbils

This study examines the effect of the psychotropic drug minaprine on memory impairment in Mongolian gerbils subjected to a 5-min bilateral common carotid artery occlusion, as assessed by their performance in an 8-arm radial maze task. Gerbils were initially trained on the 8-arm radial maze until their mean error was 0-1 for 5 days. This task was repeated before the ischemia was performed and again 7 days after it. Then the animals were immediately sacrificed for histopathological examination. Severe memory impairment occurred in the control gerbils; whereas when minaprine 75 mg/kg was given orally 30 min before the 5-min occlusion, memory impairment was significantly reduced. Histopathological analysis of the control gerbils showed nearly complete loss of the pyramidal neurons in the CA1 region of the hippocampus, whereas the minaprine-treated gerbils showed complete preservation of the pyramidal neurons. These findings suggest that minaprine has memory-impairment-prevention and neuroprotective effects against short-term ischemia in gerbils.