Abstract: AIM: To study the protective effects of amitriptyline (Ami) on glutamate-induced neurotoxicity in cultured rat cerebral cortical neurons.METHODS: Cor-tical neurons of fetal rat were cultured in vitro. The pro-tective effects of Ami on glutamate-induced neurotoxicity were observed.RESULTS: Exposure of rat fetus cerebral cells to Glu medium developed a neurotoxicity, expressed in the increase of LDH, NO andMDA, and the decrease of activity of SOD, as well as the development of morpho-logical injury. Ami (10^-6, 10^-7, 10^-8 mol·L^-1 ) signifi-cantly protected neurons against above demage.CONCLUSION: Ami can prevent rat cerebral neurons injury from the toxicity of Glu.

Key words: amitriptyline, glutamate, cerebral corti-cal neurons, cell culture