1Department of Medical Biochemistry, Dr. ALM. PG.Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Taramani Campus, University of Madras, Chennai-600113, Tamil Nadu, India.
2Current Address: Department of Physiology and Neurosciences, 173, Ashley Avenue, BSB204, Charleston, SC, 29403, United States.
3Department of Biochemistry, Guindy Campus, University of Madras, Chennai-600025, Tamil Nadu, India
*For Correspondence-msanushyas2005@gmail.com
Aging is one of major risk factor for neurodegenerative disorders. Understanding the normal and healthy aging is still under progress. The analysis of brain field potentials recorded as electroencephalogram (EEG) has been proven to be one of the sensitive tools to characterize brain aging. In the present study, we examined the EEG pattern of young (4 months) and old wistar rats (24 months old) for beta and theta wave pattern in frontal and parietal cortical lobes and also the role of Na+/K+ATPase studied in context, that altered electrical activity is coupled with membrane bound enzyme. Further, we studied the role of antioxidants namely carnitine and lipoic acid on the electrical pattern in young and aged rats. Significant increase in beta wave pattern with a significant decrease in theta pattern (p<0.05) is observed in aged rat brain when compared to the wave patterns observed in young subjects. However, supplementation of carnitine and lipoic acid to aged rats displayed a normal pattern as that of young rats. Young rats treated with carnitine and lipoic acid did not show a significant change. These observations provided an insight that carnitine and lipoic acid have an impact in normalizing electrical activity during aging. The biological significance of the results is discussed.
Aging, EEG, Na+/K+ATPase, carnitine, Lipoic acid, oxidative stress
