Division of Biohealth Science, Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Division of Biology, Center for Foundation Studies in Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2013;2013:180598. doi: 10.1155/2013/180598. Epub 2013 Dec 26.
Nigella sativa, an established historical and religion-based remedy for a wide range of health problems, is a herbal medicine known to have antioxidant and neuroprotective effects. This present study investigated the effect of Nigella sativa oil (NSO) administration on the spatial memory performance (SMP) of male adult rats using eight-arm radial arm maze (RAM). Twelve Sprague Dawley rats (7-9 weeks old) were force-fed daily with 6.0 μ L/100 g body weight of Nigella sativa oil (NSO group; n = 6) or 0.1 mL/100 g body weight of corn oil (control) (CO group; n = 6) for a period of 20 consecutive weeks. For each weekly evaluation of SMP, one day food-deprived rats were tested by allowing each of them 3 minutes to explore the RAM for food as their rewards. Similar to the control group, the SMP of the treated group was not hindered, as indicated by the establishment of the reference and working memory components of the spatial memory. The results demonstrated that lesser mean numbers of error were observed for the NSO-treated group in both parameters as compared to the CO-treated group. NSO could therefore enhance the learning and memory abilities of the rats; there was a significant decrease in the overall mean number of working memory error (WME) in the NSO-treated group.
黑种草，一种被广泛用于治疗各种健康问题的历史悠久的药物，被认为具有抗氧化和神经保护作用的草药。本研究采用八臂放射迷宫（RAM），研究了黑种草籽油（NSO）给药对雄性成年大鼠空间记忆表现（SMP）的影响。12 只 Sprague Dawley 大鼠（7-9 周龄）连续 20 周每天经口给予 6.0μL/100g 体重的黑种草籽油（NSO 组，n=6）或 0.1mL/100g 体重玉米油（对照）（CO 组，n=6）。每周进行一次 SMP 评估，将每天禁食的大鼠放入 RAM 中，允许它们在 3 分钟内寻找食物作为奖励。与对照组相似，治疗组的 SMP 并未受到影响，表明空间记忆的参考和工作记忆成分已建立。结果表明，与 CO 组相比，NSO 组在这两个参数中错误的平均数量更少。因此，NSO 可以增强大鼠的学习和记忆能力；NSO 组的整体工作记忆错误（WME）数量显著减少。
