Abstract
Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, is an age-related neurodegenerative disease that is characterized by memory dysfunction, neuronal cell damage, and neuroinflammation. It is believed that AD-related pathology is mostly due to the overproduction of Aβ, especially the oligomeric form (AβO), in the brain. Evidence of the effects of multifunctional medicinal herbs in the treatment of AD has been steadily increasing. Optimized-SopungSunkiwon (OSS), a multiherbal formulation that is composed of six medicinal herbs derived from SopungSunkiwon, is a traditional medicine that is prescribed for neurodegenerative disorders in elderly patients. We previously reported that OSS showed an antiamnesic and memory enhancing effect in mice, but it is unknown whether OSS has a protective effect against AβO neurotoxicity. In this study, we investigated the effects of OSS in AD models induced by AβO in vitro and in vivo. We found that OSS protected neuronal cells and inhibited the generation of nitric oxide and reactive oxygen species against AβO toxicity in vitro. These results were confirmed by in vivo data that oral administration of OSS for 14 days attenuated memory impairments and neuronal cell death by modulating gliosis, glutathione depletion, and synaptic damage in the mouse hippocampus induced by AβO.
Highlights
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by progressive memory and learning disorders coupled with severe neuronal degeneration [1]
The exact mechanisms of AD pathogenesis remain to be established, it is widely known that amyloid-β (Aβ) deposits play a key role in the disease [2]
The paradigm of drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases is currently diverging from a single-target to a multitarget approach, because the effects of single-target drugs are too limited to allow for effective treatment of complex neurodegenerative diseases such as AD [9]
Summary
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by progressive memory and learning disorders coupled with severe neuronal degeneration [1]. AβO has been implicated in triggering neuronal cell death by activating glial cells and generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) in AD brains [6,7,8]. These characteristics of AβO indicate the potential that AβO-induced experimental models to show various pathological features of AD may be useful. Recent studies have provided considerable evidence showing that the multimodal effects of several herbal extracts or herbal formulations are highly effective in the treatment of AD [10, 11]. B401, a herbal formulation that is famous in traditional Chinese
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