Oxidative stress has been implicated in the etiology of
Parkinson's disease (PD). The important biochemical features of PD, being profound deficit in
dopamine (DA) content,
reduced glutathione (GSH), and enhanced lipid peroxidation (LPO) in dopaminergic (DA-ergic) neurons resulting in oxidative stress,
mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis.
Rotenone-induced neurotoxicity is a well acknowledged preclinical model for studying PD in rodents as it produces selective DA-ergic neuronal degeneration. In our previous study, we have shown that chronic administration of
rotenone to rats is able to produce motor dysfunction, which increases progressively with
rotenone treatment and
centrophenoxine (CPH) co-treatment is able to attenuate these motor defects. The present study was carried out to evaluate the
antioxidant potential of CPH against
rotenone-induced oxidative stress. Chronic administration of
rotenone to SD rats resulted in marked oxidative damage in the midbrain region compared to other regions of the brain and CPH co-treatment successfully attenuated most of these changes. CPH significantly attenuated
rotenone-induced depletion in DA, GSH and increase in LPO levels. In addition, the
drug prevented the increase in
nitric oxide (NO) and
citrulline levels and also enhanced the activity of
catalase and
superoxide dismutase (SOD). Histological analysis carried out using
hematoxylin and
eosin staining has indicated severe damage to mid brain in comparison to cortex and cerebellum and this damage is attenuated by CPH co-treatment. Our results strongly indicate the possible therapeutic potential of
centrophenoxine as an
antioxidant in
Parkinson's disease and other
movement disorders where oxidative stress is a key player in the disease process.