Post-ischemic continuous administration of galantamine attenuates cognitive deficits and hippocampal neurons loss after transient global ischemia in gerbils

The deficits due to global cerebral ischemia show a close correlation with hippocampal CA1 neurons damage. Here we presented that galantamine showed effective protection against ischemic insults. In a transient brain global ischemic model conducted in gerbils, we investigated the alterations of performance in passive avoidance test and the histological changes between sham-operated animals (as controls) and those received post-ischemic continuous administration of saline (vehicle) or galantamine. Compared to the controls, gerbils received ischemic insults with saline treatment showed significant impairment in performance in passive avoidance test and dramatic loss of cells in hippocampal CA1 region. However, gerbils that received the same insults with galantamine (2 mg/kg/day) treatment performed similarly to the controls. Consistently, most of the cells in hippocampal CA1 region which were vulnerable to ischemic insults, survived after galantamine treatment. Our results suggested that continuous application of galantamine might be effective in treatment of ischemic injury.