Effects of catalpol on anxious behaviors and neurons in APP/PS1 double transgenic mice

Abstract:

Objective：To research whether catalpol affect anxious behaviors and neurons in APP/PS1 double transgenic mice. Methods：Three-month old APP/PS1 double transgenic mice were randomly divided into catalpol-treated and saline-treated groups（n=10）. 5 mg/（kg·d） of catalpol and the same amount of saline were peritoneally injected into Alzheimer’s disease（AD） model mice for 3 weeks. Elevated plus-maze test was performed to test autono-mous behaviors of AD model mice；immunohistochemical staining and Western blot were used to detect number of neurons and expressions of NeuN and PSD95 in the brain of mice. Results：Compared with those of saline-treated AD model mice，open arm entries（P=0.000 2，t=4.742） and open arm time（P=0.001，t=3.936） catalpol－treated AD mice were significantly decreased（P=0.028 4，t=2.872），number of neurons were significantly increased（P=0.028 4，t=2.872） and expressions PSD95 were also increased（P=0.002，t=5.265）. Conclusions：Catalpol can significantly reduce anxious behav－iors，which shows that catalpol may exert its neuroprotection through suppressing the wide loss of neurons and synapses in the brain of APP/PS1 double transgenic mice.