een in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
In gerbils, propentofylline, (20 mg/kg i.p. administered immediately after 5 min of
global forebrain ischemia) reduced the decrease of MI muscarinic binding sites in the
hippocampus (28). This effect may be due to prevention of the delayed ischemic death
of hippocampal neurons as described below.
Aged spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) exhibit cerebrovascular abnormalities
(51) resembling those seen in VaD; these animals also develop severe deficiencies in
learning and memory. Studies with SHRs demonstrated that long-term administration
of propentofylline (25 mg/kg p.0. once daily for 15 d) improved the learning and
memory performance of the rats in an active avoidance paradigm (shuttle box) (23