- 作者：Oezguer A. Onur ; Thomas E. Schlaepfer ; Juraj Kukolja ; Andreas Bauer ; Haang Jeung ; Alex ; ra Patin ; David-Marian Otte ; N. Jon Shah ; Wolfgang Maier ; Keith M. Kendrick ; Gereon R. Fink ; René ; Hurlemann
- 关键词：Cognitive enhancement ; D-cycloserine ; declarative learning ; fMRI ; hippocampus ; memory ; NMDA receptor
- 刊名：Biological Psychiatry
- 出版年：2010
- 出版时间：15 June 2010
- 年：2010
- 卷：67
- 期：12
- 页码：1205-1211
- 全文大小：389 K
Background
The N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) is critical for learning-related synaptic plasticity in amygdala and hippocampus. As a consequence, there is considerable interest in drugs targeting this receptor to help enhance amygdala- and hippocampus-dependent learning. A promising candidate in this respect is the NMDAR glycine-binding site partial agonist D-cycloserine (DCS). Accumulating clinical evidence indicates the efficacy of DCS in the facilitation of amygdala-dependent fear extinction learning in patients with phobic, social anxiety, panic, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. An important unresolved question though is whether the use of DCS can also facilitate hippocampus-dependent declarative learning in healthy people as opposed to being restricted to the fear memory domain.Methods
In the present study, we investigated whether or not DCS can facilitate hippocampus-dependent declarative learning. We have therefore combined functional magnetic resonance imaging with two different declarative learning tasks and cytoarchitectonic probabilistic mapping of the hippocampus and its major subdivisions in 40 healthy volunteers administered either a 250 mg single oral dose of DCS or a placebo.
Results
We found that DCS facilitates declarative learning as well as blood-oxygen level dependent activity levels in the probabilistically defined cornu ammonis region of the hippocampus. The absence of activity changes in visual control areas underscores the specific action of DCS in the hippocampal cornu ammonis region.
Conclusions
Our findings highlight NMDAR glycine-binding site partial agonism as a promising pharmacological mechanism for facilitating declarative learning in healthy people.