Effects of tianeptine on spontaneous alternation, simple and concurrent spatial discrimination learning and on alcohol-induced alternation deficits in mice.

The effects of systemic administration of tianeptine, a new psychotropic agent with antidepressant properties, were investigated on spontaneous alternation behavior, and on simple and concurrent spatial discrimination, in normal mice of the BALB/c strain. Tianeptine increased rates of spontaneous T-maze alternation, facilitated retention of a T-maze left-right discrimination, and speeded up acquisition of concurrent discrimination in a radial maze. These effects were consistent across successive experiments with a dose of 10mg/kg; lower doses (2.5 and 5.0mg/kg) had less or no effect depending on the task. These results, together with theoretical considerations, led us to investigate the effect of tianeptine on the sequential-specific alternation deficit induced by long-term ethanol administration in the same strain of mice. Results showed that, at the dose of 10mg/kg, the drug completely alleviated the alcohol-induced deficit. Unlike tianeptine, fluoxetine impaired discrimination performance in the radial maze. These data are discussed in light of the effects of tianeptine on serotonergic transmission and of the role of serotonin and acetylcholine in learning and memory processes.