Acute Pharmacokinetics of Memantine in the Mouse

The pharmacokinetics of memantine, a widely prescribed medication in the United States and the European Union for the treatment of moderate-to-severe Alzheimer's disease (AD), have not been well explored in the mouse. Memantine is a highly unspecific blocker of many channels and how memantine may be of benefit in AD remains a mystery. Therefore, the investigation of memantine in the mouse, the most commonly chosen subject for modeling AD, has strong potential to lead to better therapies. Here, we present an acute pharmacokinetic analysis of memantine in mouse brain tissue and blood serum for a variety of experimentally relevant doses. The data help shed light on the mechanism of memantine action in vivo, and demonstrate that subcutaneous doses above 10 mg/kg in the mouse are most likely not therapeutically relevant to the human. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel