ABSTRACT
Objective: Resveratrol, a phytoalexin, has a wide range of desirable biological actions. Despite a growing body of evidence indicating that resveratrol induces changes in neu-ronal function, little effort, if any, has been made to investigate the cellular effect of resveratrol treatment on intrinsic neuronal properties
Materials and Methods: This experimental study was performed to examine the acute effects of resveratrol [100 NM] on the intrinsic evoked responses of rat Cornu Ammonis [CA1] pyramidal neurons in brain slices, using whole cell patch clamp recording under current clamp conditions
Results: Findings showed that resveratrol treatment caused dramatic changes in evoked responses of pyramidal neurons. Its treatment induced a significant [P<0.05] increase in the after hyperpolarization amplitude of the first evoked action potential. Resveratrol-treated cells displayed a significantly broader action potential [AP] when compared with either control or vehicle-treated groups. In addition, the mean instantaneous firing frequency between the first two action potentials was significantly lower in resveratrol-treated neurons. It also caused a significant reduction in the time to maximum decay of AP. The rheobase current and the utilization time were both significantly greater following resveratrol treatment. Neurons exhibited a significantly depolarized voltage threshold when exposed to resveratrol
Conclusion: Results provide direct electrophysiological evidence for the inhibitory effects of resveratrol on pyramidal neurons, at least in part, by reducing the evoked neural activity