Curcumin enhances neurogenesis and cognition in aged rats: Implications for transcriptional interactions related to growth and synaptic plasticity

  • Suzhen Dong
  • , Qingwen Zeng
  • , E. Siobhan Mitchell
  • , Jin Xiu
  • , Yale Duan
  • , Chunxia Li
  • , Jyoti K. Tiwari
  • , Yinghe Hu
  • , Xiaohua Cao*
  • , Zheng Zhao
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

166 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: Curcumin has been demonstrated to have many neuroprotective properties, including improvement of cognition in humans and neurogenesis in animals, yet the mechanism of such effects remains unclear. Methodology: We assessed behavioural performance and hippocampal cell proliferation in aged rats after 6- and 12-week curcumin-fortified diets. Curcumin enhanced non-spatial and spatial memory, as well as dentate gyrate cell proliferation as compared to control diet rats. We also investigated underlying mechanistic pathways that might link curcumin treatment to increased cognition and neurogenesis via exon array analysis of cortical and hippocampal mRNA transcription. The results revealed a transcriptional network interaction of genes involved in neurotransmission, neuronal development, signal transduction, and metabolism in response to the curcumin treatment. Conclusions: The results suggest a neurogenesis- and cognition-enhancing potential of prolonged curcumin treatment in aged rats, which may be due to its diverse effects on genes related to growth and plasticity.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere31211
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume7
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 16 Feb 2012

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