Turkish Neurosurgery
1993 , Vol 3 , Num 1
AMELIORATION OF SPATIAL LEARNING AND MEMORY IMPAIRMENT BY FOETAL CHOLINERGIC NEURONAL GRAFTS IN RATS WITH LESIONS OF THE NUCLEUS BASALIS MAGNOCELLULARIS
İstanbul University School of Medicine Department of Neurosurgery, Çapa İstanbul Türkiye
The acethylcholinergic afferents of the neocortex from subcortical areas participate in learning and memory. Autopsy studies in cases of Alzheimer's disease have shown that most of the neurons of the nucleus basalis magnocellularis are atrophic or decreased in number. In this study, the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (nucleus of Meynert) an important nucleus of the basocortical cholinergic system, was destroyed by the injection of kainic add stereotactically so as to make a model of Alzheimer's disease, and cell suspension grafts prepared from acethylcholine rich foetal ventral forebrain neurons were implanted stereotactically to the frontal cortex. The results of Morris' water maze task showed that neurotoxic lesions of the nucleus basalis magnocellularis disrupt spatial learning and memory, and ventral forebrain grafts to the neocortex can restore the spatial learning impairment of lesioned rats.
Keywords :
Neural transplantation. Nucleus basalis magnocellularis, Spatial learning and memory