OBJECTIVE: To determine the clinical efficacy and safety of memantine in Huntington’s disease (HD). BACKGROUND: The excitatory activity of Lglutamate may affect the progression of HD. Memantine, an N-methyl-Daspartate antagonist used to treat Alzheimer’s dementia, could theoretically retard the progression of this disorder, improve cognition, and improve chorea. METHODS: HD patients were recrui...

To the Editor: Memantine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor agonist. It was recently approved in Europe and the United States for treating dementia and has been shown to reduce clinical deterioration in moderate-to-severe Alzheimer’s disease and in vascular dementia.1 Although memantine has been reported to be useful for psychotic symptoms (delusions and hallucinations) in patients with...

Several evidences support the hypothesis that glutamatergic dysfunction may be implicated in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and in the last few years great interest has been focused on the role of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR). Glutamate is the main excitatory neurotransmitter in human CNS and it plays a prominent role in synaptic plasticity, learning, and memory and other cognit...

Memantine is an uncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist with moderate affinity. Its mechanism of action is neuroprotective and potentially therapeutic in several neuropsychiatric diseases. It has been approved by the FDA for the treatment of moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease (AD) either as a monotherapy or in combination with cholinesterase inhibitors. This review covers key...

Schizophrenia is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder; however, all the available treatment options are used when the disease becomes clinically significant in adolescence or early adulthood. Using a developmental rat model of schizophrenia, we examined whether neonatal treatment with memantine, an NMDA receptor modulator, can improve schizophrenic-like symptoms in adulthood. Early maternal...

introduction: morphine withdrawal syndrome is mediated via several central and peripheral neurological pathways. in the present study we investigated the role of n-methyl-d aspartic acid (nmda) glutamate receptor on naloxone-induced withdrawal syndrome in morphine-conditioned mice. materials and methods: we designed two separate experiments. in experiment one, 30 male nmri mice were divided int...

The pathogenesis of stroke, trauma and chronic degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), has been linked to excitotoxic processes due to inappropriate stimulation of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDA-R). Attempts to use potent competitive NMDA-R antagonists as neuroprotectants have shown serious side-effects in patients. As an alternative approach, we were interested in the...

Purpose: Evaluating the effects of memantine on visual function after scleral buckling for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) Methods: In a Double blind prospective randomized clinical trial, 61 patients with clinical diagnosis of less than 4 weeks macula-off RRD who had successful scleral buckle surgery had been selected and divided into two randomized groups. Thirty of them received 5 mg...

BACKGROUND This study was designed to assess changes in brain volume and cognitive abilities in memantine-treated patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) by using an exploratory, single-arm, delayed-start design. METHODS Cholinesterase inhibitor-treated patients with AD (N = 47; Mini-Mental State Examination score range: 15-23) were enrolled in an observational lead-in period (weeks: 1-24), fo...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) shortens life-expectancy, but the effects of pharmacological treatments for this disorder on mortality have not been studied. We compared two commonly prescribed medications, donepezil and memantine, with respect to the length of survival of veterans presumed to have AD. The Computerized Medical Records System at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System (VAPAHC...