Effect of different melatonin treatment regimens on white matter damage in neonatal rats with hypoxic-ischemic brain damage / 中国当代儿科杂志

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE@#To study the effect of different melatonin treatment regimens on long-term behavior and white matter damage in neonatal rats with hypoxic-ischemic brain damage (HIBD), and to seek an optimal melatonin treatment regimen.@*METHODS@#Healthy Sprague-Dawley rats, aged 7 days, were randomly divided into four groups sham-operation, HIBD, single-dose immediate treatment (SDIT), and 7-day continuous treatment (7DCT), with 8 rats in each group. A neonatal rat model of HIBD was prepared according to the classical Rice-Vannucci method. On day 21 after HIBD, the Morris water maze test was used to evaluate spatial learning and memory abilities. On day 70 after HIBD, immunofluorescence assay was used to measure the expression of neuronal nuclear antigen (NeuN) in the cerebral cortex and the hippocampal CA1 region of neonatal rats, and double-label immunofluorescence was used to measure the expression of myelin basic protein (MBP) and neurofilament 200 (NF200) in the corpus striatum and the corpus callosum.@*RESULTS@#The results of the Morris water maze test showed that the SDIT and 7DCT groups had a significantly shorter mean escape latency than the HIBD group, and the 7DCT group had a significantly shorter mean escape latency than the SDIT group (@*CONCLUSIONS@#Both SDIT and 7DCT can improve long-term behavior and reduce white matter damage in neonatal rats with HIBD, and 7DCT is more effective than SDIT.