Memory impairment and hippocampus specific protein oxidation induced by ethanol intake and 3, 4‐Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in mice
Journal of Neurochemistry March 25, 2013 Clara Ros‐simó, Maria Moscoso‐castro, Jéssica Ruiz‐medina et al. 35 citations
Ethanol and MDMA, two widely abused recreational drugs, cause oxidative stress in the brain. In adolescent CD1 mice, acute MDMA treatment, alone or combined with ethanol, produced significant protein oxidative damage specifically in the hippocampus, but not in the prefrontal cortex, 72 hours after treatment. The damaged proteins are involved in energy metabolism, structural function, axonal outgrowth and stability, and neurotransmitter release. MDMA-treated mice showed greater oxidative damage than ethanol-only mice. While ethanol did not impair radial arm maze acquisition, MDMA impaired long-term declarative memory in both the object recognition assay and the radial arm maze, suggesting that MDMA-induced oxidative damage to hippocampal proteins contributes to memory deficits.