Abstract
Background: Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is considered to be involved in human cognition to mPFCin terms of learning and memory. Hypoxia is one of the crucial factors causing secondary damage incerebral hemorrhage and traumatic brain injury. However, the underlying mechanisms and possibletherapeutic approach to prevent neuronal damage has not been attempted yet. Therefore, the present studyaimed to investigate the role of Tualang honey on medial prefrontal cortical neuronal morphology andcholinergic markers such as acetylcholine (ACh) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) following exposure to normobaric hypoxia in rats.
 Material and methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were dividedinto four groups: (i) sucrose treated non-hypoxia, (ii) sucrose treated hypoxia, (iii) Tualang honeytreated non-hypoxia and (iv)Tualang honey treated hypoxia. Rats received sucrose (1 mL of 7.9%) andTualang honey (0.2 g/kg), respectively, for 2 weeks prior to hypoxia exposure. Morphological study wasperformed by using Nissl staining and cholinergic markers were estimated by ELISA technique.
 Resultsand discussion: Sucrose treated hypoxia group showed significantly lower mean ACh and higher meanAChE concentrations (P<0.05) compared to sucrose and honey treated non-hypoxia groups. Interestingly,mean ACh concentration was significantly increased and mean AChE concentration was significantlydecreased in Tualang honey treated hypoxic rats compared to sucrose treated hypoxic rats. Morphologicaldata showed that hypoxia caused neuronal damage in mPFC in sucrose treated hypoxia group whereasTualang honey treated hypoxia group significantly prevent neuronal damage.
 Conclusion: Tualang honeyprotects hypoxia-induced mPFC neuronal damage through improvement of the brain cholinergic markersin male rats exposed to normobaric hypoxia.
 Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.20(1) 2021 p.122-129
Highlights
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a crucial nerve center of thinking and behavior regulation in the brain[1] and is divided into two subregions: ventromedial prefrontal cortex for regulating the affection and dorsolateral sectors for mediating the cognitive functions[2,3]
In this article we demonstrate that Tualang honey (TH) treatment protects against changes to Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) morphology and the brain cholinergic system that follow normobaric hypoxia exposure in adult rats
Materials and methods: Animals: A total of 48 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats aged approximately eight weeks and weighed 200 g ± 20 g were obtained from the Animal Research and Service centre, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia
Summary
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a crucial nerve center of thinking and behavior regulation in the brain[1] and is divided into two subregions: ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) for regulating the affection and dorsolateral sectors (dlPFC) for mediating the cognitive functions[2,3]. The medial part of the PFC (mPFC), has been shown to be important for goal-directed action[4], working memory[5] and attention[6,7,8,9]. This part of the PFC roughly corresponds to the dIPFC in humans and other primates[10,11,12,13]. Sangu Muthuraju, Department of Neuroscience, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 16150 Kubang Kerian, Malaysia. In this article we demonstrate that TH treatment protects against changes to mPFC morphology and the brain cholinergic system that follow normobaric hypoxia exposure in adult rats
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