The Seed of Fraction Ameliorates Hippocampal Neuronal Injury in an Aβ-induced Alzheimer's Disease Rat Model Via the AKT/GSK-3β Pathway

The seed of Sonn., a famous traditional Chinese medicine, was recently reported to enhance cognitive function by inhibiting neuronal apoptosis in rats. We determined whether the seed of fraction (SLF) can ameliorate hippocampal neuronal injury via the AKT/GSK-3β pathway. We established Alzheimer's disease (AD) model by infusing Aβ into the lateral ventricle of Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats and randomly divided into five groups ( = 10): sham, donepezil and SLF (120, 240 and 480 mg/kg/d). Rats were treated by intragastric administration for 28 consecutive days. Spatial learning and memory were evaluated with Morris water maze, while protein expression of AKT, GSK-3β and tau in the hippocampal neurons was measured by Western blotting and immunohistochemistry. On the fifth day, escape latency of the AD model group was 45.78 ± 2.52 s and that of the sham operative group was 15.98 ± 2.32 s. SLF could improve cognitive functions by increasing the number of rats that crossed the platform ( < 0.01), and their platform quadrant dwell time ( < 0.05). The protein expression level of AKT was upregulated ( < 0.001), while that of GSK-3β and tau ( < 0.01) was remarkably downregulated in the hippocampal CA1 area. To our knowledge, the present study is the first to show that SLF may exert neuroprotective effect in AD rats via the AKT/GSK-3β signalling pathway, thereby serving as evidence for the potential utility of SLF as an effective drug against AD.