Effect from standardized extract of Ginkgo biloba (EGb) on discriminated avoidance memory, in middle-aged rats, submitted to the Alzheimer's model by intracerebroventricular administration of streptozotocin

• Grant number: 20/09497-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): March 01, 2021
• Effective date (End): October 22, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Pharmacology - Neuropsychopharmacology
• Principal Investigator: Suzete Maria Cerutti
• Grantee: Larissa Carriel de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Ambientais, Químicas e Farmacêuticas (ICAQF). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Diadema. Diadema , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is considered the main cause of dementia among the elderly, being characterized by progressive loss of cognitive function, and is directly correlated with the cognitive decline observed in patients with type 2 Diabetes mellitus (DM2), elucidating the term type 3 Diabetes to represent AD. In this context, of an extremely important need for new therapies to be discovered, studies showed that flavonoids promote significant improvements in cognitive functions. Among them, the standardized extract of Ginkgo Biloba (EGb) has positive effects in the treatment of age-related dementias and AD. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to evaluate the effect of EGb treatment in middle-aged rats submitted to the AD model through intraventricular administration of streptozotocin (3 mg / kg). The animals will be distributed into 10 experimental groups: naive, citrate buffer + vehicle, citrate buffer + EGb 0.25 g / kg, citrate buffer + EGb 0.5 g / kg, citrate buffer + EGb 1.0 g / kg , STZ + vehicle, STZ + EGb 0.25 g / kg, STZ + EGb 0.5 g / kg, STZ + EGb 1.0 g / kg and STZ + positive control. The animals will be treated orally with EGb or vehicle for 14 days. For memory analysis, the discriminated avoidance test will be evaluated in the modified elevated plus maze. The parameters that will be considered are: percentage of time and entries in the aversive closed arm. In addition, we will evaluate motricity and the percentage of time and entries in the open arms. At the end of the test, the animals will be anesthetized and euthanized and to take samples of the prefrontal cortex for analysis of the expression of B-amyloid and TAU proteins employing the western blotting technique. A percentage of 5% will be adopted as a limit of statistical significance in all results. (AU)