FLAVONOID RICH FRACTION OF WILLOW LEAVED SEA BUCKTHORN BERRIES ATTENUATED ISCHEMIA REPERFUSION INDUCED NEUROBEHAVIORAL DEFICITS, EXCITOTOXICITY AND ASSOCIATED NEURONAL DAMAGE

Abstract

The present study aimed to evaluate the protective effect of flavonoid rich fraction of willow leaved Sea buckthorn (SBT) berries against cerebral ischemia reperfusion induced neurobehavioral deficits and excito toxicity. Briefly, the rats were randomly divided into sham, ischemia - reperfusion (I/R) control, SBT (250 and 500 mg/kg) treated groups. The rats were received their respective treatment orally by gavage once daily for 7 days prior to middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) for 2 h and reperfusion for 22 h. To evaluate the severity of neurobehavioral deficits, a batte ry of tests were employed such as neurological deficit score, grip strength score and adhesive tape removal test. The excito toxicity mediators like glutamate and calcium were measured. The neuronal damage was quantified in terms of infarcted area, which wa s measured by 2, 3, 5 - triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining. SBT treated rats showed substantial improvement in neurobehavioral deficit, significantly inhibited the increased levels in glutamate and calcium, si gnificantly prevented the associated ne uronal damage. From our results, i t can be concluded that supplementation of SBT significantly mitigated the ischemia - repe rfusion induced neuronal damage by inhibiting excito toxicity.