Curcumin, an agent traditionally utilized for its preventative action against
tumorigenesis, oxidation,
inflammation, apoptosis and
hyperlipemia, has also been used in the treatment of
Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recent advances in the study of AD have revealed astrocytes (AS) as being key factors in the early pathophysiological changes in AD.
Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), a marker specific to AS, is markedly more manifest during morphological modifications and neural degeneration signature during the onset of AD. Several studies investigating the functionality of
curcumin have shown that it not only inhibits
amyloid sedimentation but also accelerates the disaggregation of
amyloid plaque. Thus, we are interested in the relationship between
curcumin and spatial memory in AD. In this study, we intend to investigate the effects of
curcumin in
amyloid-β (Aβ(1-40)) induced AD rat models on both the behavioral and molecular levels, that is to say, on their spatial memory and on the expression of GFAP in their hippocampi. Our results were statistically significant, showing that the spatial memory of AD rats improved following
curcumin treatment (p < 0.05), and that the expression of GFAP
mRNA and the number of GFAP positive cells in the
curcumin treated rats was decreased relative to the AD group rats (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the expression level of GFAP
mRNA in hippocampal AS in the AD rats significantly increased when compared with that in the
sham control (p < 0.05). Taken together, these results suggest that
curcumin improves the
spatial memory disorders (such disorders being symptomatic of AD) in Aβ(1-40)-induced rats by down regulating GFAP expression and suppressing AS activity.