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Effects of Yokukansan, a Traditional Japanese Medicine, on Memory Disturbance and Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia in Thiamine-Deficient Rats

2009; Pharmaceutical Society of Japan; Volume: 32; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1248/bpb.32.1701

1347-5215

Yasushi Ikarashi, Seiichi Iizuka, Sachiko Imamura, Takuji Yamaguchi, Kyoji Sekiguchi, Hitomi Kanno, Zenji Kawakami, Mitsutoshi Yuzurihara, Yoshio Kase, Shuichi Takeda,

Tryptophan and brain disorders

Effects of yokukansan (TJ-54) on memory disturbance and behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) were investigated in thiamine-deficient (TD) rats which were produced by feeding a TD diet for 37 d. Daily oral administration of TJ-54 (0.5, 1.0 g/kg) ameliorated the memory disturbance, anxiety-like behavior, the increase in aggressive behaviors, the decrease in social behaviors, and several neurological symptoms including opisthotonus observed in TD rats, in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, histopathological examinations showed that TJ-54 inhibited the degeneration of neuronal and astroglial cells in the brain stem, hippocampus and cortex in TD rats. Microdialysis experiments showed that TJ-54 inhibited extracellular glutamate rise in the ventral posterior medial thalamus in TD rats. These results suggest that TJ-54 possesses the preventive or progress inhibitive effect against the development of memory disturbance and BPSD-like behaviors induced by the degeneration of neuronal and astroglial cells resulting from TD. TJ-54 may inhibit glutamate-mediated excitotoxicity as one of mechanisms.