Depression is a common psychiatric disorder. There are some studies about anti- depressant effect of piperine. This study is about the synergistic effect of piperine and memantine on behavior improvement and BDNF gene expression in depression model in rat brain. In this experimental study, Wistar rats were divided into four groups: Negative control which received no drug, Positive control that received only 20 mg/kg corticosterone i.p ,group 3 which received corticosterone+piperine (10 mg/kg, i.p.), and group 4 that received corticosterone+ piperine (10mg/kg) + memantine (3mg/kg). After three weeks, the forced swimming test for depression, the Plus-Maze test for anxiety and Open field test for locomotor activity assay were done. Data analysis was carried out by One-way ANOVA and Tukey's test. The study of BDNF gene expression was also performed using Real-time PCR. The results of water swim test and plus-maze showed a significant difference between corticosterone+piperine memantine group and corticosterone+piperine (P<0.05). The gene expression study revealed that increased expression of BDNF occurred in piperine+corticosterone group and piperine+memantine+corticosterone group compared with corticosterone alone group and piperine+corticosterone memantine group compared with piperine+corticosterone group (P<0.05). In current study, piperine and memantine alone and in combination diminished depression and anxiety that also caused increased BDNF expression .:

Key word: depression, piperine, memantine, forced swimming test

Amin Ataie has completed his PhD at the age of 40 years from Shaheed Beheshti University of medical science, Tehran Iran. He has 15 documents in Scopus and his H index is 9 in Scopus and He is assistance professor in pharmacy faculty of Ayatollah Amoli University of Iran.