the effect of nobiletin on performance of rats in forced swimming and elevated plus maze tests in intranigral lipopolysaccharide rat model of parkinson’s disease

Background and objective: anti-inflammatory property of nobiletin (nob) is proven and neuroinflammation is involved in triggering and progression of neurodegenerative disorder such as parkinson's disease (pd). pd is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor and non-motor features including psychiatric symptoms such as depression and anxiety. the purpose of this study to investigate whether oral nobiletin administration at a dose of 10 mg/kg has the ability to alleviate non-motor behavioural changes including depression and anxiety-like behaviors in lps-induced model of pd in rat.materials and methods: for this purpose, 32 male wistar rats (195-245 g) were divided into four groups (n=8) as follows: sham-operated group, nobiletin-treated sham-operated group (sham+nob), lesion group (lps) and nobiletin-treated lesion group (lps+nob). lps (5 μg/kg) rat was unilaterally injected into the sn of rat brains through standard stereotaxis, according to the atlas of paxinos and watson (to generate a neuroinflammatory model of pd), with or without nob (10 mg/kg administrated daily for 1 week after surgery, via gavage). behavioral assessment was carried out one week after surgery by assessment of performance in forced swimming and elevated plus maze tests. results: nob-treated lps group showed significant decrease in immobility time and insignificant increase in the percentage of open arm spending time as compared with lps group which demonstrate the anti-depressant like effect of nob in inflammatory model of pd in rats. conclusion: taken together, this study demonstrated that nobiletin as an anxiolytic and anti-depressive agent in the lps-induced rat model of parkinson’s disease.