Background: The memory impairment, obtained from intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) infusion of streptozotocin (STZ) in rats through activation of oxidative stress, is accepted as sporadic Alzheimer’s disease (AD) model in most experimental studies. Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as a solvent is widely used in animal studies to have antioxidant effects as well. However, no report is available about DMSO effect on oxidative stress-induced cognition deficit i.e. AD. The present work was designed to assess the effect of chronic treatment of DMSO on STZ-treated rats.
Materials and Methods: STZ (3 mg/ kg i.c.v. bilateral with 10 µl volume in either side days 1 and 3) using a single-day version of Morris water maze (MWM). The DMSO (2.5, 5 and 10 %v/v in saline), started from the first day, was infused for 14 days.
Results: The chronic administration of DMSO 10% (but not 2.5 and 5%) improved the distance to hidden platform (P<0.01) in training sessions and time spent in the target quadrant (P<0.01) in probe tests. Neither STZ nor DMSO had any intervention on velocity and visuo-motor coordination in the visible version of MWM.
Conclusion: Taken together, the results suggest that DMSO may be appropriate as adjuvant therapies for the prevention of memory impairment in the experimental models of AD. Therefore, use of DMSO as a solvent in AD animal studies should be considered having beneficial effects on cognitive function.