earticle

영어

Various neurodegenerative diseases including dementia and cognitive dysfunction pathogenesis are caused due to oxidative stress. Several studies have proved that molecular hydrogen (H2) acts as a therapeutic and preventive anti-oxidant, however, H2 effect on dementia is poorly documented. In the present study, we investigated the effects of H2 inhalation on trimethyltin (TMT)-induced memory dysfunction in the C57BL/6 mice. For this, mice were intraperitoneally injected a single dosage of TMT 2.6 mg/kg body weight. The subjects were randomly divided into the following groups: normal control without TMT induction, TMT only as a negative control (TMT injection + saline administration), positive control group [TMT injection + lithium chloride (50 mg/kg body weight) injection], H2-2wk group [TMT injection + H2 gas inhalation (once a day for 30 min for 2 weeks) and H2-4wk group [TMT injection + H2 gas inhalation (once a day for 30 min for 4 weeks). As a result, TMT-exposed mice showed symptoms such as tremor, seizure and aggressive behavior. Meanwhile, H2-treated groups after TMT treatment showed significantly increased spatial cognition abilities in the Y-maze test. Likewise, the level of the oxidative stress markers such as ROS, NO and MDA were found to be decreased in H2-2wk and H2-4wk groups as compared to the TMT only group in both serum and brain lysate, coherently, antioxidant enzymatic activities were increased in H2-2wk and H2-4wk groups compared to TMT only group. Moreover, H2 showed prevention effect of neuronal apoptosis through the suppression of apoptotic signaling molecules such as BAX, and cleaved caspase-7. Overall, H2 inhalation exhibited memory enhancing activity and decreased the oxidative stress markers and suppressed apoptotic signaling molecules on TMT-inducd mice. Therefore, H2 might be one of candidates for repairing dementia and neuro-degenerative diseases which shows symptoms such as dysfunction of learning, memory and cognition. However further studies are needed to clarify this notion.