Intranasal dopamine treatment reinstates object-place memory in aged rats

• Published in: Neurobiology of learning and memory 2014-10, Vol.114, p.231-235
• Main Authors: Trossbach, S.V., de Souza Silva, M.A., Huston, J.P., Korth, C., Mattern, C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Administration, Intranasal; Aging; Animal cognition; Animals; Dopamine; Dopamine - administration & dosage; Learning - drug effects; Male; Memory; Nasal administration; Place learning; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Recognition (Psychology) - drug effects; Rodents; Spatial Memory - drug effects; Spatial object recognition
• ISSN: 1074-7427; 1095-9564
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2014.07.006

•Dopamine does not easily cross the blood–brain barrier when applied intravenously or orally.•Dopamine enters the brain when applied via the nostrils of rats and other mammals.•We found that aged rats (21–22months old) are deficient in a test of object-place recognition.•Administration of intranasal dopamine (0.3mg/kg) administered before the sample trial alleviated this deficit. Following oral or IV administration, dopamine (DA) cannot cross the blood–brain barrier to a significant extent, but can enter the brain when administered via the nasal passages. Intranasal administration of DA was shown to increase extracellular DA in the striatum, to have antidepressant action and to improve attention and working memory in rats. Here we show that aged (22–24months old) rats are deficient in an object-place learning task, but that this learning/memory is intact and comparable with that of adult rats upon pre-trial administration of 0.3mg/kg DA gel into the nasal passages. This result raises the possibility of the therapeutic application of intranasal DA treatment for age-related cognitive disorders.