Effect of Professor Deng Tietao’s Brain-strengthening Recipe 1 on Learning and Memory Abilities as well as N-methyl-D-aspartate Receptor Subunit 2B mRNA Expression in Rats with Vascular Dementia / 广州中医药大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective To observe the effect of Professor Deng Tietao’s Brain-strengthening Recipe 1 on learning and memory abilities of rats with vascular dementia, and to explore its molecular biology mechanism. Methods The vascular dementia rat model was established by permanent occlusion of the bilateral arteria carotis communis. Sixty male SD rats were randomly divided into 5 groups, namely sham-operation group, model group, nimodipine (5.4 mg·kg-1·d-1) group, and high-and low-dose Chinese medicine groups (57.6 and 14.4 g·kg-1·d-1, respecitvely) . After medication for 30 days, the learning and memory abilities were evaluated by Morris water maze test. The histological changes of the rat hippocampal tissues were observed after HE staining, and the mRNA expression of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor subunit 2B ( NR2B) in rat hippocampus was measured by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) . Results The water maze test results showed that the escape latency of the rats in the sham-operation group was significantly decreased on the third day, and was significantly decreased in the high-dose Chinese medicine group on the fourth day ( P0.05). HE staining results for the model group were presented as the absence of neural cells in hippocampus CA1 region, karyorrhexis of nerve cells, indistinctness of nuclear membrane, disappearance of nucleolus, shrinkage of nerve cells, increase of cytoplasm acidophily, and reactive hyperplasia of astrocytes. And in the hippocampal CA1 region of high- and low-dose Chinese medicine groups, the injured neural cells were found, and the lesions were slighter than those of the model group. Compared with the model group, the mRNA expression of NR2B was increased in nimodipine group and high-dose Chinese medicine group ( P0.05). Conclusion Brain-strengthening Recipe 1 has obvious effects on improving the learning and memory abilities of vascular dementia rats, and the therapeutic mechanism is associated with reduction of the degree of neuronal damage in hippocampus and with the upregulation of the mRNA expression of NR2B.