The effects of vasopressin on amnesia-induced by electroconvulsive shock in rats

Introduction: Vasopressin as a neu rotransmitter can improve the memory disorders due to ECS, brain trauma, diabetes insipidus, Alzheimer's disease and senile dementia. In the presen t experiment the effects of desmopressin were studied on amnesia due To elect roconvulsive shock (ECS) in rats. Materials and Methods: Forty male Wistar albino rat s, aged 3-4 months with 190 -260 gr body weight were studied in complex T maze or Morris water maze (MWM). After a primary introduction to T maze (four day), Twenty rats with a 16 hr period of thirsty introduced to the maze, which they have to find a botte! of water to drink. In MWM twenty rats were treated for ten days in training trials, spatial exploration and workin g memory trials, they have to swim in water to find the hidden platform where can rest. Then each rat in test gro up recived 10 fLgikg B.W of desmopressin and each rat in contro l group recived the same volume of 0.9% salin by ip injection Ten min perior to ECS. Ten min after injection each rat was treated with ECS and 10 min after that rat was put in T-maze and / or water maze. Results: For both test and control groups the average time to reach the goal in T and water maze and the unmber of errors in T maze was not st atistically -different on the day before experiment. On the other hand, on the day of experiment by T maze the average of the time to find the goal for test group was 9±4.78 sec and for control group was 15.25±5.67 sec and the difference are statistically significan t (P =0.032 ). With water maze the difference between the time to find the platform in the day befor and on the day of experiment in test group was -0.489 sec and in control was + 5.07 sec which is statistically significant ( p=0.047). Conclusion: It may be concluded that desmopressin can facilitat e retrieval and consolidation of spatial memory and improve the retrograde and anterograde amnesia due to ECS