Behavioral and Histological Analysis of Crocus Sativus Effect in Intracerebroventricular Streptozotocin Model of Alzheimer Disease in Rats

Background and objectives: there is well established the beneficial effects of crocus sativusextract in learning and memory improvement. in the present study the effect of this plant in memorybehavioral impairment and forbrain histological damage induced by stz-icv model of alzheimerdisease were investigated.materials and methods: this study was conducted at shahed university (tehran) in 2007. fortyfive male rats were divided into three 15 number groups: 1- control which received csf bilaterallytwo times in 1 and 3 days (10 ?l in each injection ) 2- stz-icv, streptozotocin (3 mg/kg) dissolvedin csf was injected (icv) to the animals. 3- stz+cse, the stz-icv animals received the plantextract (30 mg/kg; i.p) one other day as treatment ones. all of the animal groups were weighted andsubjected to memory behavioral passive avoidance test and brain histological damage analysis.results: stz caused selective injury to the fornix and hippocampus and an enlargement as wellas loss of ependymal cell in third ventricle. however, stz-icv treated animals with cse (30 mg/kg, i.p) one other day starting one day pre-surgery for three weeks show higher correct choice andlower errors in shuttle box test than vehicle-treated stz-injected rats. but the same cse treatmentrats did not show any antagonizing effects on stz-icv induced histological impairment.conclusion: our findings provide an explanation for effectiveness of cse in preventing thecognitive deficits caused by stz-icv in rats, which mediated by enzymes, metabolisms (glucoseutilization) and other biochemical pathways, but not via histological injury repair.