Abstract
BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a sort of nerve degenerative disease with clinical manifestation of memory damage and cognitive dysfunction. Its typical pathological change is the abnormal deposition of amyloid-beta (Aβ). METHOD: In this study, a rat AD model with liquiritin (LQ) interference was established to observe the effects of LQ on the AD rats' behavioural memory and primary hippocampus cells. RESULTS: Liquiritin had the effect of improving the rats' learning and memory ability, enhancing the activity of catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in rats' brain tissues, increasing the antioxidant ability, protecting the primary cultured hippocampal neurons and inhibiting the apoptosis induced by Aβ(25-35). CONCLUSION: The protective effects of LQ can be related to the enhancement of antioxidase activity and clearance of oxygen radicals.