Memantine and neuroprotection in mice

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Monday, 12 November 2007

The new drug memantine with potential use in glaucoma, has failed to demonstrate a significant change in the primary outcome measure with treatment (confirmed visual field loss), however an animal model has demonstrated an effect in mice: researchers in Japan have recently noted that glaucoma prone mice deficient in small molecule transporters (GLAST & EAAC1) are significantly protected in terms of ganglion cell loss in the laboratory (3% versus 20% loss). Harada et al The potential role of glutamate transporters... J Clin Invest 2007 117:1763-1770.