Abstract

Although the effects of antidepressants in brain neurochemistry have been extensively studied, there are scarce and inconsistent data on the effect of these drugs in learning and memory. The authors studied the effect of daily administration of a single dose of either clomipramine or desipramine, two monoamine-reuptake-inhibitors with preferential serotonergic and noradrenergic profiles, respectively, during 15 days, on the visuo-spatial memory of adults rats measured through their performance in an eight-arm radial maze. Rats receiving 10 mg/kg i.p. daily of clomipramine or desipramine, 30 min before testing, committed a significantly greater number of errors than saline-treated control rats throughout the duration of the test (5 sessions, 15 days), excepting for session one (after 3 days of testing) where there were no differences between the 3 groups of rats. Results indicated that both serotonergic and noradrenergic antidepressants could impair long-term visuo-spatial memory in the rat, whereas inducing no changes in working memory, effects that are likely related to changes in brain monoamine metabolism induced by the antidepressant drugs