Walnut Oil Prevents Scopolamine-Induced Memory Dysfunction in a Mouse Model

For thousands of years, it has been widely believed that walnut is a kind of nut that has benefits for the human body. Walnut oil, accounting for about 70% of walnut, mainly consists of polyunsaturated fatty acids. To investigate the effect of walnut oil on memory impairment in mice, scopolamine (3 mg/kg body weight/d) was used to establish the animal model during Morris Water Maze (MWM) tests. Walnut oil was administrated orally at 10 mL/kg body weight/d for 8 consecutive weeks. The results showed that walnut oil treatment ameliorated the behavior of the memory-impaired mice in the MWM test. Additionally, walnut oil obviously inhibited acetylcholinesterase activity (1.26 ± 0.12 U/mg prot) (p = 0.013) and increased choline acetyltransferase activity (129.75 ± 6.76 U/mg tissue wet weight) in the brains of scopolamine-treated mice (p = 0.024), suggesting that walnut oil could prevent cholinergic function damage in mice brains. Furthermore, walnut oil remarkably prevented the decrease in total superoxide dismutase activity (93.30 ± 5.50 U/mg prot) (p = 0.006) and glutathione content (110.45 ± 17.70 mg/g prot) (p = 0.047) and the increase of malondialdehyde content (13.79 ± 0.96 nmol/mg prot) (p = 0.001) in the brain of scopolamine-treated mice, indicating that walnut oil could inhibit oxidative stress in the brain of mice. Furthermore, walnut oil prevented histological changes of neurons in hippocampal CA1 and CA3 regions induced by scopolamine. These findings indicate that walnut oil could prevent memory impairment in mice, which might be a potential way for the prevention of memory dysfunctions.

Effects of Fructus Akebiae on learning and memory impairment in a scopolamine-induced animal model of dementia

Fructus Akebiae (FAE) is a component of traditional Chinese medicines used for the clinical treatment of amnesia. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of FAE extract on scopolamine-induced learning and memory impairment in mice and Sprague-Dawley rats. Treatment with FAE (2.5, 5 and 10 mg/kg) was investigated in scopolamine-treated animals, and its effects on different types of memory were examined using the T-maze, the Morris water maze task, the novel object recognition test, the passive avoidance task and the step-down test. The results revealed that 5 and 10 mg/kg FAE attenuated scopolamine-mediated impairment of cognition, including spatial, episodic, aversive, and short- and long-term memory. Overall, these results suggest that FAE is an effective cognitive enhancer, and thus highlights the value of a multi-target strategy to address the complexity of cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease.