Rubia cordifolia L. Attenuates Diabetic Neuropathy by Inhibiting Apoptosis and Oxidative Stress in Rats

BACKGROUND

Diabetic neuropathy is a debilitating manifestation of long-term diabetes mellitus. The present study explored the effects of the roots of Rubia cordifolia L. (R. cordifolia L.) in the Wistar rat model for diabetic neuropathy and possible neuroprotective, antidiabetic, and analgesic mechanisms underlying this effect.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Rats were divided into five experimental groups. An amount of 0.25% carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC) in saline and streptozotocin (STZ) (60 mg/kg) was given to group 1 and group 2, respectively. Group 3 was treated with STZ and glibenclamide simultaneously while groups 4 and 5 were simultaneously treated with STZ and hydroalcoholic extract of the root of R. cordifolia, respectively. Hot plate and cold allodynias were used to evaluate the pain threshold. The antioxidant effects of R. cordifolia were assessed by measuring Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), reduced glutathione (GSH), catalase (CAT), and superoxide dismutase (SOD). At the end of the study, sciatic nerve and brain tissues were collected for histopathological study. Bcl-2 proteins, cleaved caspase-3, and Bax were assessed through the Western blot method.

RESULTS

R. cordifolia significantly attenuated paw withdrawal and tail flick latency in diabetic neuropathic rats. R. cordifolia significantly (p < 0.01) improved the levels of oxidative stress. It was found to decrease blood glucose levels and to increase animal weight in R. cordifolia-treated groups. Treatment with R. cordifolia suppressed the cleaved caspase-3 and reduced the Bax:Bcl2 ratio in sciatic nerve and brain tissue compared to the diabetic group. Histopathological analysis also revealed a marked improvement in architecture and loss of axons in brain and sciatic nerve tissues at a higher dose of R. cordifolia (400 mg/kg).

CONCLUSION

R. cordifolia attenuated diabetic neuropathy through its antidiabetic and analgesic properties by ameliorating apoptosis and oxidative stress.

Toward optoacoustic sciatic nerve detection using an all-fiber interferometric-based sensor for endoscopic smart laser surgery

Objectives

Laser surgery requires efficient tissue classification to reduce the probability of undesirable or unwanted tissue damage. This study aimed to investigate acoustic shock waves (ASWs) as a means of classifying sciatic nerve tissue.

Materials and Methods

In this study, we classified sciatic nerve tissue against other tissue types—hard bone, soft bone, fat, muscle, and skin extracted from two proximal and distal fresh porcine femurs—using the ASWs generated by a laser during ablation. A nanosecond frequency‐doubled Nd:YAG laser at 532 nm was used to create 10 craters on each tissue type's surface. We used a fiber‐coupled Fabry–Pérot sensor to measure the ASWs. The spectrum's amplitude from each ASW frequency band measured was used as input for principal component analysis (PCA). PCA was combined with an artificial neural network to classify the tissue types. A confusion matrix and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to calculate the accuracy of the testing‐data‐based scores from the sciatic nerve and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) with a 95% confidence‐level interval.

Results

Based on the confusion matrix and ROC analysis of the model's tissue classification results (leave‐one‐out cross‐validation), nerve tissue could be classified with an average accuracy rate and AUC result of 95.78  ± 1.3% and 99.58  ± 0.6%, respectively.

Conclusion

This study demonstrates the potential of using ASWs for remote classification of nerve and other tissue types. The technique can serve as the basis of a feedback control system to detect and preserve sciatic nerves in endoscopic laser surgery.