Cydonia oblonga Miller (Quince) is an herbal medicine that is reported to prevent amnesia in Kurdish ethnomedicine. The aim of this study was to evaluate nootropic effects of quince leaf decoction (QLD). Forty mice subdivided into four equal groups i.e., control group was gavaged daily with distilled water while other three groups were gavaged with 0.92, 1.85, and 3.70 g/dl of fresh QLD for 28 days. Behavioral toxicology, encephalic acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity and molecular docking of quince phyto-compounds against AChE were measured. The anxiety, exploration and learning and spatial memory were not altered after intake of QLD in mice. The encephalic AChE activity decreased hormetically in QLD-treated mice compared with control group, which connotes nootropic property of QLD. Based on the results of molecular docking of earlier reported phyto-chemicals of QLD, quercetin-3-O-galactoside and 3-and 5-caffeoylquinic acid showed considerable binding energies to AChE and may involve in AChE inhibitory effects of QLD in mice. QLD intake did not lead to behavioral toxicity and exerted AChE inhibition and would be rationalized as a putative phyto-nootropic remedy.

BackgroundEnvironmental uncertainty, such as food deprivation, may alter internal milieu of nervous system through various mechanisms. In combination with circumstances of stress or aging, high consumption of unsaturated fatty acids and oxygen can make neural tissues sensitive to oxidative stress (OS). For adult rats, diminished level of gonadal steroid hormones accelerates OS and may result in special behavioral manifestations. This study was aimed to partially answer the question whether OS mediates trade-off between food hoarding and food intake (fat hoarding) in environmental uncertainty (e.g., fluctuations in food resource) within gonadectomized mouse model in the presence of food deprivation-induced food hoarding behavior.ResultsHoarding behavior was not uniformly expressed in all male mice that exposed to food deprivation. Extended phenotypes including hoarder and non-hoarder mice stored higher and lower amounts of food respectively as compared to that of low-hoarder mice (normal phenotype) after food deprivation. Results showed that neural oxidative status was not changed in the presence of hoarding behavior in gonadectomized mice regardless of tissue type, however, glutathione levels of brain tissues were increased in the presence of hoarding behavior. Decreased superoxide dismutase activity in brain and spinal cord tissues and increased malondialdehyde in brain tissues of gonadectomized mice were also seen.ConclusionsAlthough, food deprivation-induced hoarding behavior is a strategic response to food shortage in mice, it did not induce the same amount of hoarding across all colony mates. Hoarding behavior, in this case, is a response to the environmental uncertainty of food shortage, therefore is not an abnormal behavior. Hoarding behavior induced neural OS with regard to an increase in brain glutathione levels but failed to show other markers of neural OS. Decreased superoxide dismutase activity in brain and spinal cord tissues and increased malondialdehyde levels in brain tissues of gonadectomized mice could be a hallmark of debilitated antioxidative defense and more lipid peroxidation due to reduced amount of gonadal steroid hormones during aging.