Ferulic acid chronic treatment exerts antidepressant-like effect: role of antioxidant defense system.
Oxidative stress has been claimed a place in pathophysiology of depression; however, the details of the neurobiology of this condition remains incompletely understood. Recently, treatments employing antioxidants have been thoroughly researched. Ferulic acid (FA) is a phenolic compound with antioxidant and antidepressant-like effects. Herein, we investigated the involvement of the antioxidant activity of chronic oral FA treatment in its antidepressant-like effect using the tail suspension test (TST) and the forced swimming test (FST) in mice. The modulation of antioxidant system in blood, hippocampus and cerebral cortex was assessed after stress induction through TST and FST. Our results show that FA at the dose of 1 mg/kg has antidepressant-like effect without affecting locomotor activity. The stress induced by despair tests was able to decrease significantly the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) in the blood, catalase (CAT) in the blood and cerebral cortex and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in the cerebral cortex. Thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBA-RS) levels were increased significantly in the cerebral cortex. Furthermore, the results show that FA was capable to increase SOD, CAT and GSH-Px activities and decrease TBA-RS levels in the blood, hippocampus and cerebral cortex. These findings demonstrated that FA treatment in low doses is capable to exert antidepressant-like effect with the involvement of the antioxidant defense system modulation.
Laboratório de Análise de Substâncias Bioativas, Departamento de Ciências Naturais, Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Campus I, Blumenau, 89012-900, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Juliana
J
Lenzi
Laboratório de Fisiologia, Departamento de Ciências Naturais, Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Blumenau, 89012900, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Andre Felipe
AF
Rodrigues
Laboratório de Análise de Substâncias Bioativas, Departamento de Ciências Naturais, Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Campus I, Blumenau, 89012-900, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Adriana de Sousa
Ade S
Rós
Laboratório de Análise de Substâncias Bioativas, Departamento de Ciências Naturais, Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Campus I, Blumenau, 89012-900, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Amanda Blanski
AB
de Castro
Laboratório de Análise de Substâncias Bioativas, Departamento de Ciências Naturais, Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Campus I, Blumenau, 89012-900, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Bianca Blanski
BB
de Castro
Departamento de Medicina, Universidade da Região de Joinville, Joinville, 89219-710, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Daniela Delwing
DD
de Lima
Laboratório de Fisiologia, Departamento de Ciências Naturais, Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Blumenau, 89012900, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Débora Delwing Dal
DD
Magro
Laboratório de Análise de Substâncias Bioativas, Departamento de Ciências Naturais, Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Campus I, Blumenau, 89012-900, Santa Catarina, Brazil. anazeni@furb.br.
Ana Lúcia Bertarello
AL
Zeni
D000818:Animals; D000928:Antidepressive Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D018687:Antidepressive Agents, Second-Generation / Q000494:pharmacology; D000975:Antioxidants / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001923:Brain Chemistry / Q000187:drug effects; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism; D003373:Coumaric Acids / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005473:Fluoxetine / Q000494:pharmacology; D019417:Hindlimb Suspension / Q000523:psychology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000378:metabolism / Q000523:psychology; D013550:Swimming / Q000523:psychology
D000928:Antidepressive Agents; D018687:Antidepressive Agents, Second-Generation; D000975:Antioxidants; D003373:Coumaric Acids; D005473:Fluoxetine; C004999:ferulic acid
Antidepressant-like effect; Antioxidative/oxidative stress; Ferulic acid; Fluoxetine