Neuroprotective effects of Quetiapine on neuronal apoptosis following experimental transient focal cerebral ischemia in rats

Cerebral ischemia constitutes one of the most important reasons of mortality and morbidity. It is not only a neurological problem; may also cause several psychiatric and medical complications which may result with delayed improvement of patient. Therefore, several studies have been conducted for prevention of primary and secondary cerebral ischemic accidents and for providing neuronal protection so far. Especially ischemic penumbra and apoptotic cell death remain as a target in recent studies.Current study was conducted in the light of the findings supporting anti-apoptotic effects of 5HT2 receptor blockers with the idea of ketiapine ?an atypical antipsychotic drug may prevent apoptosis especially in the region of ischemic penumbra following ischemia. A total number of 30 animals divided into 5 groups each including 6 were used. No intervention was performed for K-I group which was used to compare with other groups for confirming if adequate ischemia was obtained. K-II group was sacrificed at the first day and K-III was sacrificed at 3rd day following transient focal cerebral ischemia. DI group was sacrificed after single dose administration of ketiapine at the first day and DII was sacrificed following daily administration of ketiapine after ischemia at the 3rd day. All samples were stained immunohistochemically via TUNEL method and apoptotic cells were counted. Ketiapine was found significantly relative with reduction in increasing apoptotic cell death over time. (K-III/D-I: p=0,02 and K-III/D-II p:0,004)Many previously researched neuronal protective agents for ischemia are out of clinical use; however ketiapine is an effective, safe and recently used drug in clinical practice, which renders this study more important. We believe that ketiapine may help in cerebral ischemia as a neuroprotective and may also help in solving neuropsychiatric problems resulting from ischemia in the light of our results and literature data.