Exp Neurobiol.  2018 Dec;27(6):564-573. 10.5607/en.2018.27.6.564.

Siegesbeckia Orientalis L. Extract Attenuates Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction, Systemic Inflammation, and Neuroinflammation

Affiliations
  • 1Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, University of Macau, Macao SAR 999078, China. bcalecyu@umac.mo
  • 2Department of Anaesthesiology, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam 999077, Hong Kong, China. gordon@hku.hk
  • 3HKBU Shenzhen Research Center, Shenzhen 518000, Guangdong, China.
  • 4School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong 999077, Hong Kong, China.

Abstract

A proportion of patients experience acute or even prolonged cognitive impairment after surgery, a condition known as postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD). It is characterized by impairment in different cognitive domains and neuroinflammation has been implicated as one of the inciting factors as strategies targeting inflammation tend to improve cognitive performance. Siegesbeckia Orientails L. (S. Orientails) is a common Chinese medicinal herb used for managing chronic inflammatory diseases. We investigated if pretreatment with S. Orientails before surgery confers any neuroprotective effects in postoperative animals in terms of reducing inflammation and mitigating cognitive impairment. Three-month-old male C57BL/6N mice were fed different doses of S. Orientails extract for 14 days before they underwent a laparotomy. After cognitive testing they were sacrificed on postoperative day (POD) 3. Our results showed that animals with extract pretreatment demonstrated memory improvement in a dose-dependent manner compared with control. Further, evidence for the attenuation of systemic and neuroinflammation was found in the pretreated animals, along with the inhibition of inflammatory pathways and significantly reduced tau phosphorylation in the hippocampus. Taken together, these results demonstrated a neuroprotective effect of S. Orientails in postoperative animals, indicating a therapeutic potential of S. Orientails in minimizing POCD and the possibility of utilizing this traditional Chinese medicine perioperatively.

Keyword

Surgery; Cognitive dysfunction; inflammation; Tau

MeSH Terms

Animals
Asian Continental Ancestry Group
Cognition Disorders
Hippocampus
Humans
Inflammation*
Laparotomy
Male
Medicine, Chinese Traditional
Memory
Mice
Neuroprotective Agents
Phosphorylation
Plants, Medicinal
Neuroprotective Agents
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