IMR Press / JIN / Volume 20 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.31083/j.jin2004101
Open Access Brief Report
Paeonol administration alleviates cognitive deficits and attenuates neural pathological changes in APP/PS1 mice
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1 Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, 200233 Shanghai, China
2 Department of Encephalopathy, Shanghai Municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 200071 Shanghai, China
*Correspondence: mengshengxi@sjtu.edu.cn (Shengxi Meng)
J. Integr. Neurosci. 2021, 20(4), 1001–1010; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.jin2004101
Submitted: 3 September 2021 | Revised: 11 October 2021 | Accepted: 20 October 2021 | Published: 30 December 2021
Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease typically presents with impaired cognition and pathological morphologic changes, including the accumulation of amyloid-β plaques. Disease-modifying drugs are in urgent need as neuroprotective therapies. Exploration of novel therapeutics for alleviating symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease has found promise in plant extracts of functional phenols. Paeonol is a water-soluble phenolic substance that has been shown to confer diverse biological effects, including neuroprotection. An Alzheimer’s disease model of APP/PS1 double transgenic mice was used in this study, and the therapeutic effects of paeonol were assessed after three weeks’ administration. It was found that paeonol treatment significantly increased behavioral performance in the Morris water maze test and increased discrimination rate in the novel object recognition test compared to vehicle-treated APP/PS1 mice. Histologically, paeonol treatment significantly alleviated the Aβ plaque burden, reduced neural loss, inhibited microglia activation, and decreased neuroinflammation in the brain of APP/PS1 mice. In addition, a number of Alzheimer’s disease-related synaptic plasticity deficits were ameliorated. The present results indicate that paeonol significantly relieved amyloid-β deposition and amyloid-β -mediated neuropathology in the brain of APP/PS1 mice, suggesting the potential of paeonol as a preventive and therapeutic agent for Alzheimer’s disease.

Keywords
Paeonol
Alzheimer's disease
Cognitive deficits
Pathological changes
APP/PS1 mice
Figures
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