If experiments in mice with a form of Alzheimer’s disease are any indication, treatment with a drug called rolipram appears to produce lasting improvement in learning and memory deficits, investigators from New York report.

Rolipram is being studied for treating a number of conditions ranging from depression to multiple sclerosis, even spinal cord injuries. The researchers theorize that it may stabilize synaptic circuits - the connections between nerves.

“This is the first demonstration that treatment with an agent known to directly affect the molecular machinery of memory can lead to long-lasting strengthening of the connection between nerve cells, and protect them from damage by beta-amyloid, the molecule responsible for cellular damage in Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Ottavio Arancio told Reuters Health.

Arancio, of Columbia University’s Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain, and his colleagues describe their studies in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Briefly, they saw that one 3-week course of rolipram injections improved abnormalities in synapses, learning, and memory in mice engineered to develop a form Alzheimer’s disease.

“Rolipram re-establishes normal memory” in these animals, Arancio said. “Significantly, this improvement persisted for at least two months after drug treatment was stopped.”

It is noteworthy, he added, that rolipram’s beneficial effects are actually greater in older animals.

“This work suggests that not only can treatment with rolipram ... counteract the toxic effects of high levels of amyloid protein in Alzheimer’s disease, but that it has the potential to delay the natural progression of the disease,” Arancio concluded.

SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Investigation, December 1, 2004.