Vestibular stimulation induced alteration in glutamate levels improves memory and anxiety scores in scopolamine induced dementia rats

Abstract

Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter which is essential for cognition but, at the same time, a neurotoxin if accumulated beyond a certain level. The derangement of glutamate level in brain is closely associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Vestibular stimulation is known to stabilize various neuro-chemical transmission in central nervous system, especially effective in enhancing acetyl choline level and reduction of acetyl cholinesterase level. So the current study has undertaken to evaluate glutamate level in dementia and vestibular stimulation groups and its role in improving memory and anxiety scores. In the present study, 32 Wistar rats were used. Scopolamine was used to induce dementia and caloric stimulation (bilateral, unilateral right and unilateral left) was used stimulate vestibular system. Behavioral parameters like water maze used to asses memory and elevated plus maze was used to assess anxiety in our study. Glutamate was quantified by spectroflurimetry and histopathology of hippocampus and cortex were assessed. Caloric vestibular stimulation effectively reduced glutamate level near to normal values and this result reflected in increased memory scores in water maze and increased exploratory activities in elevated plus maze. Especially unilateral left vestibular stimulation has found beneficial in reducing glutamate level. All these positive outcomes have proven that vestibular stimulation can increase memory and anxiety scores in dementia and thereby can be used as an alternative therapy in this field. Further animal studies and human studies are needed to dig deep into the molecular mechanisms behind its actions.