Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that leads to memory impairment. However, the exact etiology of AD is not clear but cholinergic dysfunction and oxidative stress are considered to play an important role in its pathogenesis. Because of this reason, antioxidant compounds are expected to play potential beneficial role in this disease. Among number of antioxidant compounds, hesperidin (HSD) was selected for this study on the basis of its reported antioxidant and neuroprotective effects. Moreover, it has shown higher probable activity value for scavenging free radical along with anti-dementia effects, predicted by PASS online computer program. Current study was designed to evaluate the nootropic and antioxidant effects of HSD. The different groups of animals received scopolamine (2mg/kg) along with co-treamtment of HSD (100, 200mg/kg) and donepezil HCl (3mg/kg) i.p. for consecutive 10 days. Behavioral tests were carried out, 30min after respective treatment on 2nd, 5th and 9th day for memory evaluation. On 10th day of treatment, the animals were sacrificed and the homogenates of brain hippocampus and cortex were used for biochemical estimation. Co-treatment with HSD at both doses significantly reversed the changes in memory and biochemical alterations, induced by scopolamine administration. It can be concluded that HSD has strong memory enhancing and anti-oxidant effects, therefore, it can be considered as a potential candidate for its further pharmacological evaluation for AD-induced dementia.
Keywords: Acetylcholine; Alzheimer’s disease; Dementia; Hesperidin; Step down latency; Transfer latency.
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