Zolpidem antioxidant and neuroprotective effects on acrylamide-induced neurotoxicity using primary neuronal cortical culture

Zolpidem is an introduced medication for treatment of sleeping disorders. The pharmacological effect of zolpidem is consequently characterized by a quick onset and a half-life of 2.4 h. Previous studies revealed the antioxidant and neuro-protectant effects of zolpidem. In this research, the aim was to demonstrate the exact sub-cellular/molecular mechanism of this medication using the primary neuronal cortical culture.MethodsFirst the cortical neurons were isolated from the postnatal Wistar rat pups. Thereafter, different neural toxicity endpoints -created by acrylamide- including reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, lipid peroxidation, mitochondrial membrane potential collapse, lysosomal membrane integrity and apoptosis were measured. All of these parameters are upstream events of cellular apoptosis which justifies neurodegeneration involved in many diseases such as Alzheimer, Parkinson and etc.ResultsAttained results demonstrated that zolpidem at concentrations of 1 and 2mM prevented all the mentioned acrylamide-induced neural upstream toxic events leading to neuronal apoptosis.ConclusionThese results revealed that zolpidem has antioxidant and neuro-protective properties that make it a promising prophylactic agent to prevent neuro-degenerative complications. Considering the important role of oxidative stress in the development or progression of diseases, if the used medication for the treatment of a disease has antioxidant properties, it will certainly help to achieve a better healing.

Keywords:

Primary neuronal cortical culture , Oxidative stress , Neuro-degeneration , Neuro-protection