en تخصصي Special پژوهشي Research <p><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>Introduction:</strong> It has been shown that three new synthetic coumarins-3-carboxamides including 3-fluorobenzilchloride, 4-fluorobenzilchloride and 2-hidroxy-3 metoxybenzaldehyde, have acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity. This study was performed to estimate ameliorating effect of these new coumarin-3-carboxamides on memory impairments induced by scopolamine (1 mg/kg, induced prolongation) in mice.</span></span></p> <p></p> <p><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>Methods:</strong> 30 male mice were divided into five groups, 6 mice in each group. Three experiment groups received coumarins-3- carboxamides (10 mg/kg body weight) 30 min before scopalamin injection and two other groups considered as normal (saline-treated) groups and finally one negative control (scopalamin only) group. The experiment groups were treated with coumarins of 3-fluorobenzilchloride, 4-fluorobenzilchloride and 2-hidroxy-3 metoxybenzaldehyde. The passive avoidance test was performed in an automatic conventional shuttle box set-up. The stepped down latency and number of errors was recorded.</span></span></p> <p></p> <p><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>Results:</strong> With reference to saline-treated group, scopolamine-treated mice demonstrated impairment of learning and memory as a reduction of latency and an increased numbers of errors in step-down test)p < 0.01). Treated mice receiving these coumarins at the dose of 10 mg/kg showed an increase in the number of avoidances on the memory tests compared to the scopolamine group (p < 0.01).</span></span></p> <p></p> <p><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>Conclusion</strong>: The study has demonstrated some therapeutic effects of coumarin-3-carboxamides on learning and memory deficit induced by scopolamine. Further investigation is needed to explore whether coumarin-3-carboxamides could be beneficial for memory impairment in Alzheimer&rsquo;s disease in which cholinergic deficit is one of the hallmarks.&nbsp;</span></span></p> Coumarins, Scopolamine, Passive Avoidance, 3-fluorobenzilchloride, 4-fluorobenzilchloride, 2-hidroxy-3 metoxybenzaldehyde 50 54 http://ehj.ssu.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1-29&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Samaneh Ghanei Nasab s_ghaneinasab_chem@yahoo.com Yes Department of Chemistry, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran Farzin Hadizadeh No Biotechnology Research Center, School of Pharmacy, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran Azam Marjani No Department of Chemistry, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran