¹Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, Qassim University, Buraydah 51452, Saudi Arabia
²Pharmacy Department, Maternity and Children Hospital, Buraydah 52384, Qassim Cluster, Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia Aripiprazole (APZ) is an atypical class of antipsychotics prescribed to patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and treatment-resistant depression. Preclinical and clinical research have shown that APZ is helpful for cognitive performance in people with schizophrenia who exhibit negative symptoms. An endotoxin extract from gramnegative bacteria lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was reported to induce memory deficits and used as a model for explaining Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This research aimed to determine that APZ could mitigate cognitive deficits with LPS-induced neurotoxicity in rats. Two doses of APZ (1 or 2 mg/kg) were administrated orally for 28 days to groups of rats. Four doses (1 mg/kg) of LPS were injected peripherally to induce neurotoxic. The cognitive characteristics were tested using the Y-maze and the elevated plus maze (EPM). In order to assess the levels of acetylcholine (ACh), the brain tissues were collected. The results highlighted that the transfer latency (TL) time in EPM was prolonged after LPS induction and also it reduced the novel arm performance of the Y-maze test. The APZ administration reduced the TL in EPM and improved the number of novel arm entries and also it extended the animals’ time spent in the novel arm. Further, the higher dose of APZ (2 mg/kg, p.o.) improved the cholinergic activities in the brain by increasing the ACh levels after LPS induction. These results are suggested that APZ is one of the therapeutic avenues for cognitive deficits related to schizophrenia and other neuroinflammatory-related neurodegenerative insults. Keywords : Aripiprazole; Neurodegeneration; Dementia; Elevated plus-maze; Y-Maze; Acetylcholine