Background information: Scopolamine, a nonselective muscarinic cholinergic receptor antagonist causes deficits in learning and memory. When administered to rodents for 1 week, scopolamine induces cholinergic neurodegeneration along with cognitive deficits. Scopolamine-induced memory impairment is one of the most widely used models because complex surgical procedures are not required.

The scopolamine-induced dementia is a viable model for predicting pharmacodynamic activity of compounds in both animals and humans.

Animals: Male/Female Wistar rats.

Schopolamine administration: 1.5 mg/kg, IP, OD, from Day 0 to Day 7.

Efficacy test: Test articles are administered from Day 0 to Day 7 and efficacy is assessed on Day 9.

Behavioral readouts: Novel Object Recognition test (NOR); Day 7 (habituation day) – Day 8 (T1, training day) – Day 9 (T2, testing day).

Positive control: Donepezil.

Criteria for significance: ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s test is applied for comparison between the vehicle and treatment groups. Significant activity is considered at the P<0.05 level. # vs Control (Veh/Veh), * vs Scopolamine (Veh/SCO).

Turnaround time: 90 Days.