Diphenyl diselenide improves scopolamine-induced memory impairment in mice

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of exposure to diphenyl diselenide (PhSe)2 on cognitive impairment induced by scopolamine, a muscarinic antagonist, using the Y-maze and Morris water maze tests in mice. One hour before the tests, mice were treated with (PhSe)2 (50 mg/kg, oral) and 30 min later memory impairment was induced by administration of scopolamine (1 mg/kg, intraperitoneal). (PhSe)2 (50 mg/kg, oral) significantly improved scopolamine-induced memory impairment in the Y-maze test. At the probe trial session in Morris water maze, (PhSe)2 (50 mg/kg, oral) significantly decreased the escape latency, increased the number of crossings in the platform local, and increased the time spent in the platform quadrant when compared with the scopolamine-treated group. General locomotor activity was similar in all groups. This study showed that (PhSe)2 ameliorated the impairments of spatial long-term memory and short-term memory, showed by the performance of mice in the Morris water maze and Y-maze tasks, respectively. These results suggest that (PhSe)2 may be useful for the treatment of cognitive impairment that may hold significant therapeutic value in alleviating certain memory deficits observed in Alzheimer's disease.

Therapeutic effect of organoselenium dietary supplementation in a sporadic dementia of Alzheimer's type model in rats

“…The (MeOPhSe) 2 -supplemented diet ameliorated the performance of rats in the Morris water maze and passive avoidance tasks. These findings are in agreement with those previously reported, which demonstrated that inorganic Se [12] and organic Se [13,17,18] are effective in preventing, improving or ameliorating memory of rodents.…”

“…In fact, some studies have demonstrated the neuroprotective action, among other properties, of these compounds [3,15,16]. In this way, diphenyl diselenide [(PhSe) 2 ], a simple organoselenium compound, ameliorates memory impairment induced by scopolamine in mice [13] and enhances cognitive performance in rodents without inducing neurotoxicity [17,18].…”

“…Se has been associated to the reduction of Aβ production and of Aβ induction of neuronal death in cells culture [11]. In animal models of AD, Se prevented oxidative damage and modulated the cholinergic system [12,13].…”

Cognitive effects of diphenyl diselenide and estradiol treatments in ovariectomized mice

“…In line with this, our research group has investigated pharmacological properties of organoselenium compounds as therapeutic agents (Nogueira & Rocha, 2012;Nogueira, Zeni, & Rocha, 2004). Earlier evidence supports the hypothesis that the organoselenium compound diphenyl diselenide [(PhSe) 2 ] displays cognitive-enhancing properties in the Object Recognition test (ORT) (Rosa et al, 2003) and in the Y-maze and MWM tests (Souza, Brüning, Leite, Zeni, & Nogueira, 2010) in male mice, and in the MWM test in male rats (Stangherlin, Luchese, Pinton, Rocha, & Nogueira, 2008) and in OVX female rats (Da Rocha et al, 2012).…”

p-Chloro-diphenyl diselenide, an organoselenium compound, with antidepressant-like and memory enhancer actions in aging male rats

“…These compounds, capable of propagating the redox cycle of selenium, with the property of imitating the redox physiological chemistry of selenol/selenolate groups, might supplement natural cellular defenses against the oxidizing agents . In addition to the antioxidant action, some neuroprotective properties have been assigned to diselenides, such as memory improvement (Souza et al 2010), antidepressant-like (Savegnago et al 2007;Brüning et al 2011) as well as anticonvulsant (Prigol et al 2009) in rodents. Thus, the brain appears to be one of the target organs of diselenides, and this proposal is reinforced by the fact that diselenides have highly lipophilic nature (Nogueira and Rocha 2010).…”