TY  - JOUR
AU  - Onur, O.A.
AU  - Schlaepfer, T.E.
AU  - Kukolja, J.
AU  - Bauer, A.
AU  - Jeung, H.
AU  - Patin, A.
AU  - Otte, D.-M.
AU  - Shah, J. N.
AU  - Maier, W.
AU  - Kendrick, K.M.
AU  - Fink, G. R.
AU  - Hurlemann, R.
TI  - The N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Co-agonist D-Cycloserine Facilitates Declarative Learning and Hippocampal Activity in Humans
JO  - Biological psychiatry
VL  - 67
SN  - 0006-3223
CY  - Amsterdam [u.a.]
PB  - Elsevier Science
M1  - PreJuSER-9820
SP  - 1205 - 1211
PY  - 2010
N1  - RH was supported by a German Research Foundation Grant (HU1302/2-2) and by a Starting Independent Researcher Grant jointly provided by the Ministry of Innovation, Science, Research and Technology of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the University of Bonn. KMK was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
AB  - The N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) is critical for learning-related synaptic plasticity in amygdala and hippocampus. As a consequence, there is considerable interest in drugs targeting this receptor to help enhance amygdala- and hippocampus-dependent learning. A promising candidate in this respect is the NMDAR glycine-binding site partial agonist D-cycloserine (DCS). Accumulating clinical evidence indicates the efficacy of DCS in the facilitation of amygdala-dependent fear extinction learning in patients with phobic, social anxiety, panic, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. An important unresolved question though is whether the use of DCS can also facilitate hippocampus-dependent declarative learning in healthy people as opposed to being restricted to the fear memory domain.In the present study, we investigated whether or not DCS can facilitate hippocampus-dependent declarative learning. We have therefore combined functional magnetic resonance imaging with two different declarative learning tasks and cytoarchitectonic probabilistic mapping of the hippocampus and its major subdivisions in 40 healthy volunteers administered either a 250 mg single oral dose of DCS or a placebo.We found that DCS facilitates declarative learning as well as blood-oxygen level dependent activity levels in the probabilistically defined cornu ammonis region of the hippocampus. The absence of activity changes in visual control areas underscores the specific action of DCS in the hippocampal cornu ammonis region.Our findings highlight NMDAR glycine-binding site partial agonism as a promising pharmacological mechanism for facilitating declarative learning in healthy people.
KW  - Adult
KW  - Cycloserine: pharmacology
KW  - Female
KW  - Hippocampus: drug effects
KW  - Hippocampus: physiology
KW  - Humans
KW  - Learning: drug effects
KW  - Learning: physiology
KW  - Magnetic Resonance Imaging: methods
KW  - Male
KW  - Photic Stimulation: methods
KW  - Psychomotor Performance: drug effects
KW  - Psychomotor Performance: physiology
KW  - Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate: agonists
KW  - Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NLM Chemicals)
KW  - Cycloserine (NLM Chemicals)
KW  - J (WoSType)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:20303474
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000279205800013
DO  - DOI:10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.01.022
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/9820
ER  -