Fresh Gastrodia elata Blume alleviates simulated weightlessness-induced cognitive impairment by regulating inflammatory and apoptosis-related pathways

Yiwen Zhang; Hong Huang; Caihong Yao; Xinran Sun; Qinghu He; Muhammad Iqbal Choudharyc; Shanguang Chen; Xinmin Liu; Ning Jiang

doi:10.3389/fphar.2023.1173920

Fresh Gastrodia elata Blume alleviates simulated weightlessness-induced cognitive impairment by regulating inflammatory and apoptosis-related pathways

Front Pharmacol. 2023 May 3:14:1173920. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2023.1173920. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yiwen Zhang¹, Hong Huang¹, Caihong Yao¹, Xinran Sun¹, Qinghu He², Muhammad Iqbal Choudharyc³, Shanguang Chen⁴, Xinmin Liu^{2

5

6}, Ning Jiang¹

Affiliations

¹ Research Center for Pharmacology and Toxicology, Institute of Medicinal Plant Development (IMPLAD), Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
² Sino-Pakistan Center on Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hunan University of Medicine, Huaihua, China.
³ H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan.
⁴ National Laboratory of Human Factors Engineering, The State Key Laboratory of Space Medicine Fundamentals and Application, China Astronaut Research and Training Center, Beijing, China.
⁵ Institute of Drug Discovery Technology, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China.
⁶ Healthy & Intelligent Kitchen Engineering Research Center of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang, China.

Abstract

In aerospace medicine, the influence of microgravity on cognition has always been a risk factor threatening astronauts' health. The traditional medicinal plant and food material Gastrodia elata Blume has been used as a therapeutic drug for neurological diseases for a long time due to its unique neuroprotective effect. To study the effect of fresh Gastrodia elata Blume (FG) on cognitive impairment caused by microgravity, hindlimb unloading (HU) was used to stimulate weightlessness in mice. The fresh Gastrodia elata Blume (0.5 g/kg or 1.0 g/kg) was intragastrically administered daily to mice exposed to HU and behavioral tests were conducted after four weeks to detect the cognitive status of animals. The behavioral tests results showed that fresh Gastrodia elata Blume therapy significantly improved the performance of mice in the object location recognition test, Step-Down test, and Morris Water Maze test, including short-term and long-term spatial memory. According to the biochemical test results, fresh Gastrodia elata Blume administration not only reduced serum factor levels of oxidative stress but also maintained the balance of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory factors in the hippocampus, reversing the abnormal increase of NLRP3 and NF-κB. The apoptosis-related proteins were downregulated which may be related to the activation of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway by fresh Gastrodia elata Blume therapy, and the abnormal changes of synapse-related protein and glutamate neurotransmitter were corrected. These results identify the improvement effect of fresh Gastrodia elata Blume as a new application form of Gastrodia elata Blume on cognitive impairment caused by simulated weightlessness and advance our understanding of the mechanism of fresh Gastrodia elata Blume on the neuroprotective effect.

Keywords: Gastrodia elata Blume; apoptosis; inflammatory; learning and memory; stimulated weightlessness.

Grants and funding

The Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS) (Grant No. 2021-1-I2M-034), the International Cooperative Project of Traditional Chinese Medicine (GZYYG2020023), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81773930), the Space Medical Experiment Project of the China Manned Space Program (Grant No. HYZHXM05003) the all provided funding for this project.