Memantine prevents cardiomyocytes nuclear size reduction in the left ventricle of rats exposed to cold stress

• Autor(a) principal: Meneghini, Adriano
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Ferreira, Celso, Abreu, Luiz Carlos de, Valenti, Vitor E., Ferreira, Marcelo, F. Filho, Celso, Murad, Neif
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Clinics
• Texto Completo: https://www.revistas.usp.br/clinics/article/view/17967
• topic: Memantine; Cardiac myocytes; Cardiotonic agents; Cell nucleus structures; Heart

OBJECTIVES: Memantine is an N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptor antagonist used to treat Alzheimer's disease. Previous studies have suggested that receptor blockers act as neuroprotective agents; however, no study has specifically investigated the impact that these drugs have on the heart. We sought to evaluate the effects of memantine on nuclear size reduction in cardiac cells exposed to cold stress. METHOD: We used male EPM-Wistar rats (n=40) divided into 4 groups: 1) Matched control (CON); 2) Memantine-treated rats (MEM); 3) Rats undergoing induced hypothermia (IH) and 4) Rats undergoing induced hypothermia that were also treated with memantine (IHM). Animals in the MEM and IHM groups were treated by oral gavage administration of 20 mg/kg/day memantine over an eight-day period. Animals in the IH and IHM groups were submitted to 4 hours of hypothermia in a controlled environment with a temperature of - 8ºC on the last day of the study. RESULTS: The MEM group had the largest cardiomyocyte nuclear size (151 ± 3.5 μm³ vs. CON: 142 ± 2.3 μm³; p