Mechanism of Icariin for Improving Depressive Behavior in Prenatal Stress Rats
To investigate the effects of icariin(ICA)on depressive behavior in prenatal stress(PS)rats and its mechanisms.The pregnant rats were stimulated by restraint stress,and then the male rats were divided into CON group,PS group,normal saline group,ICA-L group(40 mg/kg)and ICA-H group(80 mg/kg).Sucrose preference test and forced swim test were used for behavioral detection.The expression levels of NR4a2 and NR4a3 proteins in hippocampus were detected using Western blotting.The results showed that PS significantly decreased the sucrose preference(P<0.01),prolonged the im-mobility time(P<0.05),and showed obvious depressive behavior.The expression levels of NR4a2 and NR4a3 proteins in the hippocampus were decreased(P<0.05).After chronic treatment with ICA,the de-pressive behavior of the offspring rat was alleviated,mainly manifested by the increase of sucrose pref-erence(ICA-L:P<0.05;ICA-H:P<0.01)and the decrease of immobilization time(ICA-L:P<0.05;ICA-H:P<0.05)and the protein expression levels of NR4a2(ICA-L:P<0.05)and NR4a3(ICA-H:P<0.05)in hippocampus were increased.These results suggest that ICA plays an antidepressant role by regulating the expression of NR4a2 and NR4a3 in hippocampus.
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