Jornal de Ciências Clínicas e Médicas

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Motion Sickness Medication Cinnarizine could Impair Hippocampal Morphology, Memory and Learning in Wistar Rat Models

Gabriel Godson Akunna, Sule Olubunmi Omobola, Lucyann C.A, Saalu L.C

Traveling is an integral part of human existence and the need to be very comfortable while traveling is of outmost importance to humans but most people suffer from motion sickness while traveling and depend on medications like cinnarizine to help them with the nausea and sickness they feel while traveling. Cinnarizine an anti-histamine which has been approved for the treatment of motion sickness, vomiting, nausea, inner ear disorders and vertigo, it does this by reducing blood viscosity, reducing nystagmus in the labyrinth and by carrying out anti-vasoconstrictor activity. This study is aimed to see if cinnarizine given at different doses at different duration will have effect on the hippocampus and the learning and memory ability of persons who use it to treat motion sickness using Adult Wistar rats as model for this study.

Cinnarizine (10 mg/kg and 20 mg/kg) was administered orally using orogastric cannula and the memory and learning ability of the rats were tested using Morris water maze test after 21 days of treatment with cinnarizine, the rats were euthanized 21 days after oral administration. Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF-α), Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) and Malondialdehyde (MDA) were measured. Groups treated with high dose of 20 mg/kg showed significantly shorter latencies when compared with the control group treated with normal saline which showed that learning has occurred. Groups administered with low dose of cinnarizine showed increase in MDA level and decrease in SOD level while those administered with high dose show high level of SOD and decrease in MDA level, TNF-α also showed same results. With this Data it can be concluded that cinnarizine improved learning and memory ability of treated rats and also possess anti-inflammatory properties.