ABSTRACT
Cognitive deficit is an emerging health concern in diabetic patients. Hyperglycemia and reactive oxygen species are believed to be among the prime candidates mediating the behavioral impairments and memory deficits. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of curcumin on blood glucose level, neurobehavioral responses and some oxidative stress biomarkers in Alloxan-induced diabetic Swiss Albino mice. The animals were divided into five (5) groups of four mice each (n=4). Diabetes was induced using a single dose of Alloxan (150 mg/kg) intra peritoneally. Group I served as normoglycemic control and received distilled water, group II, III, IV and V were diabetic and received olive oil 1 ml/kg, glibenclamide 1 mg/kg, curcumin 50 mg/kg and curcumin 100mg/kg respectively. All administrations were done for a duration of 21 days. Blood glucose level was determined using glucose oxidase method and cognitive impairment was determined using spontaneous alternation in the Y-maze and novel object recognition task (NORT). The result obtained from this study showed that curcumin at both doses (50 mg/kg and 100 mg/kg) decrease significantly (p < 0.05) the fasting blood glucose level (108.25 � 16.01 mg/dl and 114.75 � 5.56 mg/dl respectively) when compared with the diabetic control group (221.50 � 14.03 mg/dl). Also the result demonstrated that curcumin at 100 mg/kg significantly (p < 0.05) increase the percentage alternation (74.39 � 8.06%) when compared with the diabetic control group (47.50 � 13.65%) in the Y- maze test and significantly (p < 0.05) improve the memory, recognition and discrimination indices (14.85 � 6.46s, 0.39 � 0.04s and 63.71 � 2.95s) compared to the pretreatment (-10.90 � 6.40s, -0.27 � 0.11s and 36.04 � 8.19s respectively) using NORT. Also, both doses of curcumin recorded increase in SOD (12.84 � 0.84) and catalase (85.05 � 3.23) compared to the diabetic control group (5.75 � 0.96 and 62.27 � 7.07) respectively. The findings of this study suggest that curcumin has both antihyperglycemic and antioxidant activity and may ameliorate diabetes-induced cognitive impairment in Swiss albino mice.