paeonol alleviates brain glucose hypometabolism in streptozotocin murine model of sporadic alzheimer’s disease using micropet imaging

Background and objective: intracerebroventricular (icv) injection of streptozotocin (stz) in rodents causes a model of sporadic alzheimer’s disease (sad) with development of insulin resistance and neuronal dysfunction. paeonol is a phenolic agent with neuroprotective effect due to its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects. this study was conducted to assess its beneficial effect in prevention of brain glucose hypometabolism in icv stz rat model of sad.materials and methods: stz (3 mg/kg) was bilaterally injected icv on days 0 and 2 using stereotaxic surgery and paeonol was orally given at two doses of 25 (low) or 100 (high) mg/kg from day 0 (post-surgery) till day 24 post-stz. at the end of study, positron emission tomography (pet) imaging was employed with a micro-pet scanner through tail vein injection of 18fdg and brain to background ratio (bbr) was calculated. results: icv-stz group had a significantly low bbr compared to sham group. in contrast, icv-stz group treated with paeonol at a dose of 100 mg/kg had a significantly higher bbr as compared to icv-stz group, clearly indicating attenuation of brain glucose hypometabolism. in addition, paeonol at a dose of 25 mg/kg did not significantly improve bbr in icv-stz group. conclusion: in summary, these results revealed the beneficial dose-dependent effect of paeonol in amelioration of brain glucose hypometabolism in stz-induced model of sad.