The effect of ethyl pyruvate administration on rat hippocampus neuron number after the brain ischemia

The cerebral ischemia which is caused by various reasons is one of the major causes of death and disability in the adult population. Although there are many studies on ischemia, satisfactory progress has not yet been made as for how the damage can be prevented. Hippocampus is ischemia-sensitive a region in which neurogenesis occurs in the postnatal period. Ethyl pyruvate (EP) is an antioxidant and antiinflamatory agent. At the same time, it is a neuroprotective agent. Therefore, this study was planned to determine study the possible effects of EP on the number of neurons in the hippocampus in the cerebral ischemia.In the study, 30 female Sprague Dawley rats of 16-week-old were used. Rats, were divided into five groups, including control (Group I), ischemia (Group II), ischemia+EP (Group III), sham+EP (Group IV) and sham+ringer lactate (Group V). No intervention was performed to the group I. Ischemia, for 30 minutes performed for the groups II and III. Group II did not receive anything after the ischemia and followed for 10 days. Since the ischemia was performed, EP (40 mg / kg) was applied to the group III intraperitonealy once a day in the same time periods during the ten days? period. In the group IV and V, was performed incision and then suture to the rats? necks. Since the surgery of the group IV was carried out, EP (40 mg / kg) was applied to group intraperitonealy once a day in the same time periods during the ten days? period. Since the surgery of the group V was carried out, ringer lactate (40 mg / kg) was applied to group intraperitonealy once a day in the same time periods during the ten days? period. On the eleventh day of the experiment all the rats were decapitated and their brain tissues were removed. The brain tissues were embedded in paraffin through routine histology follow up. Then, with a systematic random sampling, sections were removed from the brain and stained with cresyl fast violet and their stereological analyses were performed with the optical fractionator method.Acording to the results, there are reduction between control group and ischemia, and between the control group and iscemia+EP groups with respect to the number of neurons and these reduction are significant. And this shows that, ischemia involved in the rats reduced the number of neurons in the hippocampus corno ammonis (CA). There was not any significant differences between the control group and sham+EP group with respect to number of neurons unlike significant differences between the ischemia and sham+EP and between the ischemia+EP and sham+EP in the number of neurons. These results show that the EP in the rats does not have any significant influence on the number of neurons in the hippocampus CA.Key Words: Rat, hippocampus, ischemia, ethyl pyruvate (EP), stereology, optical disecto