EFFECT OF MELATONIN AGAINST GLUTAMATE-INDUCED EXCITOTOXICITY ON CULTURED CEREBRAL CORTICAL NEURONS

Melatonin(MT) is a kind of very importantpineal hormone.Besides its sedative,hypnotic andanalgetic effects,in recent years,many researchershave suggested that it may be used in the treat-ment of many acute and chronic central nervoussystem diseases,for example,brain trauma,epilepsy,Alzheimer s disease,and so on1～ 3 ] .　However,its mechanism of resisting diseases isstill unclear.In the present research,an isolatedpattern of excitotoxic neuron injury was induced byglutamate.On the basis of …

EFFECT OF MELATONIN AGAINST GLUTAMATE-INDUCED EXCITOTOXICITY ON CULTURED CEREBRAL CORTICAL NEURONS

Objective To research the effect of melatonin against glutamate excitotoxicity. Methods The model of glutamate-induced excitotoxic damage was built up in rat cerebral cortical cell culture. The effect of mela- tonin against excitotoxic injury was observed by determining the leakage rate of lactate dehydrogenase(LDH) from neurons. Results The leakage rate of LDH wasn＇t decreased markedly when cultures were exposed to melatonin be- fore, during or 6 h after glutamate treatment. The leakage rate of LDH was decreased significantly when melatonin was administered 0 h, 2 h or 4 h after the cultures were exposed to glutamate. The inhibitory function of melatonin on LDH leakage was most effective at 2 h and 4 h. Conclusion Melatonin has protective effects on neurons damaged by glutamate in a certain time limit.