Saturday, April 25, 2009

Royal Jelly May Help Treat Depression

Royal Jelly Facilitates Restoration of the Cognitive Ability in Trimethyltin-Intoxicated Mice
Evid. Based Complement. Altern. Med, April 17, 2009

Trimethyltin (TMT) is a toxic organotin compound that induces acute neuronal death selectively in the hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG) followed by cognition impairment; however the TMT-injured hippocampal DG itself is reported to regenerate the neuronal cell layer through rapid enhancement of neurogenesis.

Neural stem/progenitor cells (NS/NPCs) are present in the adult hippocampal DG, and generate neurons that can function for the cognition ability. Therefore, we investigated whether royal jelly (RJ) stimulates the regenerating processes of the TMT-injured hippocampal DG, and found that orally administered RJ significantly increased the number of DG granule cells and simultaneously improved the cognitive impairment.

Furthermore, we have already shown that RJ facilitates neurogenesis of cultured NS/NPCs. These present results, taken together with previous observations, suggest that the orally administered RJ may be a promising avenue for ameliorating neuronal function by regenerating hippocampal granule cells that function in the cognition process…

Discussion

Based on the results of the present study, we propose that RJ can facilitate neurogenesis in vivo, which suggests that RJ may serve a tool for protection against and therapy for some particular neurological disorders such as depression, whose etiology is associated with reduced hippocampal DG neurogenesis. RJ has the potential of being a promising evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine.

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