Tremulous jaw movements produced by acute tacrine administration: possible relation to parkinsonian side effects.

Previous work has shown that cholinomimetic drugs induce "vacuous" or non-directed jaw movements in rats. In the present study, five experiments were conducted to provide a pharmacological, anatomical and behavioral characterization of tacrine-induced vacuous jaw movements. In the first experiment, tacrine produced vacuous chewing in a dose-related manner in a range of 1.25 mg/kg to 1.0 mg/kg. This effect was reduced, also in a dose-related manner, by the co-administration of the muscarinic antagonist scopolamine in a range of 0.125 to 1.0 mg/kg, but not by N-methylscopolamine. The fourth experiment examined the effect of scopolamine (2.5 to 10.0 micrograms) injected into the ventrolateral striatum on vacuous jaw movements induced by 5.0 mg/kg tacrine. Intrastriatal injections of scopolamine completely blocked tacrine-induced jaw movements. The fifth experiment utilized a slow-motion videotaping system to analyze the temporal characteristics of vacuous chewing induced by 5.0 mg/kg tacrine. The vast majority of the movements occurred in rapid "bursts," and analysis of interresponse times (i.e., the time between each jaw movement) showed that most of the jaw movements occurred within a local frequency range of 3 to 7 Hz. Thus, tacrine-induced jaw movements are reduced by antimuscarinic treatment, and most of these movements occur in the parkinsonian tremor frequency range. Tremulous jaw movements induced by tacrine in rats appear to share some characteristics with Parkinsonian tremor.