title: The effect of taurine and enriched environment on behaviour, memory and hippocampus of diabetic rats.
abstract: Diabetes mellitus (DM) has been studied recently as a major cause of cognitive deficits, memory and neurodegenerative damage. Taurine and enriched environment have stood out for presenting neuroprotective and stimulating effects that deserve further study. In this paper, we examined the effects of taurine and enriched environment in the context of diabetes, evaluating effects on behaviour, memory, death and cellular activity. Eighty-eight Wistar rats were divided into 2 groups (E=enriched environment; C=standard housing). Some animals (24/group) underwent induction of diabetes, and within each group, some animals (half of diabetics (D) and half of non-diabetics (ND)/group) were treated for 30days with taurine (T). Untreated animals received saline (S). In total, there were eight subgroups: DTC, DSC, NDTC, NDSC, DTE, DSE, NDTE and NDSE. During the experiment, short-term memory was evaluated. After 30th day of experiment, the animals were euthanized and was made removal of brains used to immunohistochemistry procedures for GFAP and cleaved caspase-3. As a result, we observed that animals treated with taurine showed better performance in behavioural and memory tasks, and the enriched environment had positive effects, especially in non-diabetic animals. Furthermore, taurine and enriched environment seemed to be able to interfere with neuronal apoptosis and loss of glial cells, and in some instances, these two factors seemed to have synergistic effects. From these data, taurine and enriched environment may have important neurostimulant and neuroprotective effects.
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Pesquisa em Patologia, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Electronic address: frahmeier13@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Francine Luciano
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Rahmeier
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Pesquisa em Patologia, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Electronic address: lisi.zavalhia@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Lisiane Silveira
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Zavalhia
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Pesquisa em Patologia, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Electronic address: lucas.tortorelli@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Lucas Silva
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Tortorelli
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Pesquisa em Patologia, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Electronic address: ferhuf@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Fernanda
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Huf
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Psiquiatria Molecular, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Electronic address: lu.p.gea@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Luiza Paul
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Géa
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Pesquisa em Patologia, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Electronic address: rosalvameurer@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Rosalva Thereza
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Meurer
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Pesquisa em Patologia, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Electronic address: aryadne.cardoso@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Aryadne Cardoso
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Machado
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Álcool e Tabaco, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Electronic address: rosane.gomez@ufrgs.br.
authors.forename: Rosane
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Pesquisa em Patologia, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Electronic address: marneuro@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Marilda da Cruz
authors.initials: MDC
authors.lastname: Fernandes
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000187:drug effects; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects; D053148:Caspase 3 / Q000378:metabolism; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000378:metabolism / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004777:Environment; D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein / Q000378:metabolism; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects*; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects*; D009457:Neuroglia / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000187:drug effects; D013654:Taurine / Q000008:administration & dosage*
chemical_list: C000614142:Gfap protein, rat; D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein; D013654:Taurine; D053148:Caspase 3
keywords: Dentate gyrus; Diabetes; Enriched environment; Memory; Neurodegeneration; Taurine