OBJECTIVETo investigate the effect of curcumin on the injury in hippocampal neurons and the expression of regulated upon activation nonnal T-cell expressed and secreted (RANTES) in hippocamp during cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) in rats with spontaneous hypertension (SH).

METHODSMale Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats and spontaneous hypertension rats (SHR) were randomly divided into five groups (n = 6): sham group (W-Sham and S-Sham group), ischemia/reperfusion group (W-/R and S/R group), curcumin group (S-Cur group) . Each group was splitted into 5 subgroups of 3 h,12 h, 1 d, 3 d and 7 d according to the time interval before reperfusion. Global brain ischemia/reperfusion model was established by 4-VO method. Hematoxylin-eosin staining (HE staining) was used to observe the vertebral cell morphology in hippocampal CA1 region. Nissl staining was applied to detect the average density of cone cells in hippocampal CA1 region. The expression of RANTES in hippocamp was determined by ELISA. The behavior of the rats was evaluated at 7 days after reperfusion. Results: Compared with the sham group rats, the ability of learning and memory was significantly decreased in ischemia/reperfusion group rats, the number of injured neurons were greatly elevated , the protein expression levels of RANTES was significantly increased (P < 0.05). Compared with W-I/R group rats, the ability of learning and memory in S-I/R group rats was greatly reduced, the number of injured neurons increased extremely, the protein expression level of RANTES was significantly enhanced( P <0.05). The number of injured neurons declined significantly in S-Cur group rats, the ability to learn and remember of these rats was improved and the RANTES protein content decreased significantly (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSHR are more susceptible to ischemia/reperfusion induced hippocampal neuronal injury which may be improved by curcu min. Its underlying mechanism is possibly associated with the inhibition of RANTES protein expression level.