A comparative study of the effect of supplementing citicoline with fluoxetine and amitriptyline on learning and memory in albino rats.
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Date
2015-09
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Abstract
Background: The prevalence of psychosomatic complaints in children and
adolescents has been reported to be between 10% and 25%. In addition, these
problems present in a wide range of people across different age groups. Complaints
of impaired learning and memory are common in patients treated with drugs acting
on the central nervous system including the prototypical antidepressant drugs (AAD)
such as fluoxetine and amitriptyline. Concomitant administration of the nootropic
drug citicoline may help in the maintenance of cognition through the retention of
memory and learning capacity.
Methods: Albino rats were used for this study as they are the most standardized of
all experimental animals and divided into five groups of six rats each including the
control group. The test apparatus used was the Morris water maze which is one of
the most widely used tasks in behavioral neuroscience for studying the psychological
processes and neural mechanisms of spatial learning and memory. The drugs used in
the study were fluoxetine amitriptyline and citicoline. All the rats received respective
treatment for the period of 20 days. The experiment was conducted during the last
week. During this period, the rats were simultaneously trained and tested for 4 days
for learning behavior (i.e. from 14th to 17th day of the study) designated as day 1,
day 2, day 3, and day 4. After a gap of 2 days, i.e. on day 20, the rats were tested for
the retention of memory on Morris water maze (designated as day 6).
Results: There was a statistically significant impairment in learning behavior of the
rats in fluoxetine and amitriptyline group when compared to control group (p<0.01 is
highly significant) but no such significance was obtained when the groups containing
the AADs was supplemented with citicoline. In addition, fluoxetine caused more
impairment than amitriptyline and supplemental citicoline was beneficial in retaining
the memory and preventing learning impairment, but the combination is more
beneficial in the amitriptyline group as compared to the fluoxetine group.
Conclusions: Cognition in individuals with depression may be influenced by several
factors, including basic neuropathology and the frequency and severity of depressive
episodes. The major finding of the present study is that learning was impaired by both
the antidepressants, i.e., fluoxetine and amitriptyline but was reversed by citicoline
which has a novel mechanism of action.
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Keywords
Antidepressants, Citicoline, Cognition
Citation
Amol Gramle, Loc Bhulan Prasad, Ramya Y S. A comparative study of the effect of supplementing citicoline with fluoxetine and amitriptyline on learning and memory in albino rats. International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology. 2015 Sep-Oct; 4(5): 884-887.