“To study the effect of epalrestat, an Aldose reductase inhibitor on memory and Learning in diabetic male wistar rats”

Abstract

ABSTRACT Type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is known to be connected with cognitive impairment (CI). Evidence from various studies revealed that oxidative stress and neuro-inflammatory contributes are linked to neurodegeneration. Epalrestat [EPS; aldose reductase inhibitor (ARI)] is commonly prescribed medicine for diabetic peripheral neuropathy. It is evident that drugs with a rhodanine structure having antioxidant and anti-inflammatory characters. Thus, it is suggestive that EPS can be potential drugs for treatment of CI induces by DM. However, there is no study reports regarding the effect of EPS like compound on memory and learning in diabetes. EPS may produce possible neuroprotection in experimental rats. Aggregation of tau and Aß-amyloid proteins were seen in Alzheimers disease (AD), both are toxic to neurons and EPS is found to have the potential for clearing tau protein. Because of this pleiotropic effect it could be hypothesized that it may produce the beneficial effect s for the management of neurodegenerative disease and thus improve learning and memory associated with DM. Therefore, In view of paucity of information the proposed study is designed with following objectives:

1. To estimate the effect of EPS on memory and learning in high fat diet (HFD) and streptozotocin [STZ] induced diabetic rats. 2. To estimate the effect of EPS on ‘tau protein’ level in brain tissue. 3. To estimate the effect of EPS on gene expression level 4. To estimate the effect of EPS on oxidative stress markers