Differential effects of scopolamine on memory processes in the object recognition test and the Morris water maze test in mice

Abstract

Several lines of evidence indicate that scopolamine as a nonselective muscarinic antagonist disrupts object recognition performance and spatial working memory when administered systemically. In the present study, we investigated the different effects of scopolamine on acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval phases of object recognition performance and spatial working memory using the object recognition and the Morris water maze tasks in mice. In the acquisition phase test, scopolamine decreased recognition index on object recognition task and the trial 1 to trial 2 differences on Morris water maze task. In the consolidation and retrieval phase tests, scopolamine also decreased recognition index on object recognition task, where as scopolamine did not exhibited any effects on the Morris water maze task.