Therapeutic effect of traditional Chinese medicine on Alzheimers disease in mice

ObjectiveTo establish an aluminum-induced Alzheimer's disease model in mice and to explore therapeutic effect of traditional Chinese medicine treatment on the disease.MethodsThe mice were treated with the feed mixed with aluminum chloride solution for three months.A model group with no further treatment and three treatment groups treated with three different formulations of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM1,TCM2,and TCM3)extract orally were established.A normal group treated with an equal volume of distilled water was also established.Water maze test was adopted to determine the changes in memory of the mice before and after the experiment.After three months of continuous experiment,the mice were sacrificed and acetylcholinesterase(AchE),malondialdehyde(MDA),superoxide anion radicals()clearance,and aluminum content in brain tissue of the mice were determined.Pathological changes of the brains were also observed.ResultsCompared with the control group,the error rate for water maze test in model group increased significantly,and compared with the model group,the error rate decreased significantly in TCM1 and TCM2 gropus.The AchE content(0.399±0.093 U/mg prot)decreased in model group compared to that of control group(0.829±0.095)but increased in TCM1 group(0.758±0.025) and TCM2 group(0.700±0.086)compared to that of model group(P<0.01 for all).Compared to that of control group,the clearance of (16.61±1.49%)decreased in model group,but the clearance of  increased significantly in TCM1 group(20.54±1.93%)and TCM2 group(19.62%±1.63%)compared to that of model group(P<0.05 for all).The aluminum content in brain tissue of model group was significantly higher than that of in control group and the contents in TCM treated groups were significantly lower than that in the model group.The decreased number of neural cells and damaged neurons were observed in the brain of model mice and the pathological changes were all alleviate in the mice treated with TCM.ConclusionAluminum can cause cognition impairment,decreases in AchE ativity and antioxidation capacity of brain tissues and TCM could alleviated the neurotoxitity of aluminum in mice.