Curcumin Alters Neural Plasticity and Viability of Intact Hippocampal Circuits and Attenuates Behavioral Despair and COX-2 Expression in Chronically Stressed Rats

Figure 1

Experimental schedules for curcumin administration to produce an antidepressant effect in chronic stress-induced rats. The experiment was designed to explore the efficacy of curcumin against chronic stress-induced depression in an animal model using behavioral and biological methodologies. All animals were given distilled water for one week after arrival to habituate them to laboratory conditions. Starting on the first day, sham () SD rats and control () SD rats were fed 10 mL/kg distilled water until the end of the experiment. For the treatment groups, curcumin 50 () SD rats were fed 50 mg/kg curcumin and curcumin 100 () SD rats were fed 100 mg/kg curcumin. Curcumin was dissolved in DMSO. Stress was administered once a day over a period of 18 days in the control and curcumin groups. Behavioral testing commenced 60 min after the last curcumin treatment. On the last day, the rats were killed for biological experiments.