Chronic intracerebroventricular administration of dimethyl sulfoxide attenuates streptozotocin-iduced memory loss in rats

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The memory impairment, obtained from intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) infusion of strept ozotocin in rats through activation of oxidative stress, is accepted as sporadic Alzhei mer's disease model in most experimental studies. Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as a solvent is widely used in animal studies to have antioxidant effects as well. However, no report is available about DMSO effect on oxidative stress-induced cognition deficit i.e. Alzheimer's disease. The present work was designed to assess th e effect of chronic treatment of DMSO on STZ-treated rats. METHODS: STZ (3 mg/ kg; i.c.v.; bilateral with 10 µl volume in either side; days 1 and 3) using a single-day version of Morris water maze. The DMSO (2.5, 5 and 10 %v/v in saline), started from the first day, was infused for 14 days. RESULTS: The chronic administration of DMSO 10% improved the distance to hidden platform (P<0.01) in training sessions and t ime spent in the target quadrant in probe tests (P<0.01). Neither STZ nor DMSO had any intervention on velocity and visuo-motor coordination in the visible version of MWM. CONCLUSION: Totally, the results suggest that DMSO may be appr opriate as adjuvant therapies for the prevention of memory imp airment in the experimental models of Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, use of DMSO as a solvent in Alzheimer's disease animal studies should be consid ered having beneficial effects on cognitive function.