Preliminary Study On The Effect Of Poria Cocos In The "Kaixinsan" Prescription

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a common central nervous system degenerative diseases.The clinical manifestations of AD include memory loss, cognitive impairment, personality changes, and its pathological characteristics contain the deposition ofβ-amyloid peptide (Aβ), the formation of senile plaques (SP) on cerebral cortex and hippocampus, as well as neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) and specific brain regions of cholinergic neurons and synapses of the missing.With the arrival of an aging society, AD increased the incidence rate year after year. World Alzheimer’s disease Association identified September 21 as "World Alzheimer’s Awareness Day" in order to appeal to the community concerned about the health of the elderly. Epidemiological survey shows the incidence of AD in the world for men 30.5/1000/year for women 48.2/1000/year (Bachman 1992). The incidence rate of United States over the age of 85 is 47.02%. Chinese people over 65 years of age the incidence rate is 0.8-6.3%. At present the treatment of AD is still a lack of effective drugs, so finding effective drugs is hot areas in the neuropharmacology research.Kaixinsan (KXS) is contained in the Tang Sun Si-miao, "Preparation of emergency Qian Jin Yao Fang", composed of Poria cocos, Panax ginseng, Polygala tenuifolia, and Acori tatarinowii. Modern pharmacological studies have shown that KXS could improve the AD model animal learning and memory abilities, increase superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, decrease malondialdehyde (MDA) content and acetylcholinesterase (AchE) activity in brain tissue. However, due to the complicated ingredients of Chinese herbal compound, it is difficult to clarify the specific role of targets of the various components of traditional Chinese medicine, the role of channels and the role of size. Therefore, it is necessary to study the composition of traditional Chinese medicine.In this paper, we tested the learning and memory abilities of model animals by Morris Water Maze, step by step, shuttle box, and detected the activity of superoxide dismutase, acetylcholinesterase (AchE) as well as the content of malondialdehyde (MDA), and observed the morphological changes by HE staining.1. The proliferation and injury study on neural cells of KXS, KXS without poria (QFLKXS) and the components of KXS.We observed that KXS had effects on the proliferation and protection of nerve cells, but these functions decreased of QFLKXS.2. The improving effect on learning and memory abilities of KXS and QFLKXS. Comparison of QFLKXS, KXS could significantly improved learning and memory abilities of the model animals including D-gal+Scop; D-gal; and ntracerebroventricular injection of Aβ25-35, QFLKXS can not improve the abilities.3. The mechanism studies of KXS, QFLKXS to improve the learning and memory abilities.Experimental results show that, KXS can reduce acetylcholinesterase (AchE) activity and malondialdehyde (MDA) content, increased superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, but QFLKXS had not improvment or fewer effects.In summary, the results show that poria is an irreplaceable component for KXS improving learning and memory in AD animals, provide the experimental evidence for development and use of KXS.