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Icariin, a major constituent of flavonoids from the Chinese medicinal herb Epimedium brevicornum, exhibits multiple biological properties, including anti-inflammatory, neuroregulatory and neuroprotective activities. Therefore, Icariin might be applied in treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), which is neuropathologically characterized by β-amyloid aggregation, hyperphosphorylated tau and neuroinflammation. Potential therapeutic effects of Icariin were investigated in an animal model of cerebral amyloidosis for AD, transgenic APP/PS1 mouse. Icariin was suspended in carboxymethylcellulose and given orally to APP/PS1 mice. Therapeutic effects were monitored by behavioral tests, namely nesting assay, before and during the experimental treatment. Following an oral treatment of 10 days, Icariin significantly attenuated Aβ deposition, microglial activation and TGF-β1 immunoreactivity at amyloid plaques in cortex and hippocampus of transgenic mice 5 months of age, and restored impaired nesting ability. Our results suggest that Icariin might be considered a promising therapeutic option for human AD.

Experimental autoimmune neuritis (EAN) is a T cell-mediated autoimmune inflammatory demyelinating disease of the peripheral nervous system and widely-used animal model of human inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathies. Doxycycline is a well-known antibiotic and has been reported to have neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory effects. Here we investigated the effects of doxycycline on rat EAN. Therapeutic treatment with doxycycline (40 mg/kg body weight daily from the Day 9 to Day 14 post immunization) significantly attenuated the severity of EAN, decreased inflammatory infiltration of macrophages, B- and T-cells and demyelination in sciatic nerves of EAN rats. Pro-inflammatory molecules including matrixmetalloproteinase-9, inducible nitric oxide synthase and interleukin-17 were greatly decreased in sciatic nerves by administration of doxycycline as well. Taken together, our data showed that doxycycline could effectively suppress the peripheral inflammation to improve outcome of EAN, which suggests that doxycycline may be considered as a potential candidate of pharmacological treatment for neuropathies.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that is the main cause of dementia in the elderly. The aggregation of β-amyloid peptides is one of the characterizing pathological changes of AD. Topiramate is an antiepileptic drug, which in addition, is used in the treatment of many neuropsychiatric disorders. In this study, the therapeutic effects of topiramate were investigated in a transgenic mouse model of cerebral amyloidosis (APP/PS1 mice). Before, during, and after topiramate treatment, behavioral tests were performed. Following a treatment period of 21 days, topiramate significantly ameliorated deficits in nest-constructing capability as well as in social interaction. Thereafter, brain sections of mice were analyzed, and a significant attenuation of microglial activation as well as β-amyloid deposition was observed in sections from topiramate-treated APP/PS1 mice. Therefore, topiramate could be considered as a promising drug in the treatment of human AD.