EN
The Morris Water Maze (MWM) is a behavioral method for testing allothetic memory. The aim of study was to asses immediate effect of NMDA receptors blocking, by MK-801 or memantine, on working memory. Memory was tested in the MWM test with two various delays. Male adult Long-Evans rats were injected intraperitoneally with 5 or 20 mg/kg b.w. memantine or 0.1 mg/kg b.w. MK-801 or saline (1 ml/kg) 30 minutes before training in three consecutive days. The follow-up effect (without injection) was tested on day 9. Daily session consisted of training and testing trials with 5 or 15 min interval. Maximum time of a trial was 60 s. Location of hidden platform was alternated every day. Rats treated with high dose of memantine showed poor working memory, manifested as long latency of swim to the platform. This effect was present in trials with both delays. Low memantine group performed task as well as control. Working memory was affected by MK-801 just in trials with a long delay. Test with long delay was more sensitive on low dose of MK-801 than on low dose of memantine. The study shows a role of MK-801 in induction of psychosis-like behavior in an animal model of schizophrenia. Grant MNiSW 8165/B/P01/2011/40 and IGA MZ CR NT13386.