Protective effect of paeoniflorin on acute cerebral infarction in rats.

The purpose of this paper was to study the protective effect of paeoniflorin on acute cerebral ischemia. The animal model of cerebral infarction induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) was blocked by suture method. Sixty SD rats were randomly divided into shame group, MCAO group, paeoniflorin (60, 120, 240 mg/kg, respectively) and nimodipine (NMDP) group (n = 10 per group). The rats were intragastrically administered immediately after operation. After 7 days of gavage, the brains were decapitated at 24 h. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining was used to observe the degree of cell damage in the cerebral cortex of rats. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect silver plating and to observe changes in nerve cells. Rats in the model group showed obvious symptoms of neurological deficits, such as the ischemic morphological changed obviously, the malondialdehyde (MDA), lactate dehydrogenase (LD) content and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity was significantly increased in the ischemic brain tissue, while the superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity was decreased. The decrease in Na+-K+-ATPase activity was significantly lower than that in the sham group. The neurological symptoms and signs of MCAO in the different doses of paeoniflorin group were improved, and the neuronal edema in the cortical area was alleviated. The activities of SOD, LDH and Na+-K+-ATPase were significantly increased, and the contents of MDA and LD were decreased. Therefore, paeoniflorin could alleviate the degree of tissue damage in rats with acute cerebral infarction, inhabit the formation of free radicals in the brain tissue after ischemia, and reduce the degree of lipid peroxidation. Thus the degree of cell damage was reduced greatly and a protective effect was showed on cerebral ischemia.