Benzodiazepine impairment of perirhinal cortical plasticity and recognition memory

Benzodiazepines, including lorazepam, are widely used in human medicine as anxiolytics or sedatives, and at higher doses can produce amnesia. Here we demonstrate that in rats lorazepam impairs both recognition memory and synaptic plastic processes (long‐term depression and long‐term potentiation). B...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The European journal of neuroscience Vol. 20; no. 8; pp. 2214 - 2224
Main Authors:	Wan, H., Warburton, E. C., Zhu, X. O., Koder, T. J., Park, Y., Aggleton, J. P., Cho, K., Bashir, Z. I., Brown, M. W.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Oxford, UK Blackwell Science Ltd 01-10-2004
Subjects:	amnesia Animals Benzodiazepines - pharmacology Cerebral Cortex - drug effects Cerebral Cortex - physiology GABA lorazepam Lorazepam - pharmacology LTP and LTD Male Neuronal Plasticity - drug effects Neuronal Plasticity - physiology rat Rats Recognition, Psychology - drug effects Recognition, Psychology - physiology
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Summary:	Benzodiazepines, including lorazepam, are widely used in human medicine as anxiolytics or sedatives, and at higher doses can produce amnesia. Here we demonstrate that in rats lorazepam impairs both recognition memory and synaptic plastic processes (long‐term depression and long‐term potentiation). Both impairments are produced by actions in perirhinal cortex. The findings thus establish a mechanism by means of which benzodiazepines impair recognition memory. The findings also strengthen the hypotheses that the familiarity discrimination component of recognition memory is dependent on reductions in perirhinal neuronal responses when stimuli are repeated and that these response reductions are due to a plastic mechanism also used in long‐term depression.
Bibliography:	ark:/67375/WNG-LMPW44J3-Z istex:33FA8E88890BB08233180D549CF16451CDA3333F ArticleID:EJN3688 ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2
ISSN:	0953-816X 1460-9568
DOI:	10.1111/j.1460-9568.2004.03688.x