English abstract
ABSTRACT
Alzheimer's disease is one of the most common types of dementia which is characterized by progressive loss of memory, affects daily activity and decline in intellectual function. Regular consumption of fruits and vegetables rich in phenolic compounds is usually associated with lower risk of neurodegenerative diseases and better cognitive performance in the elderly. Figs grown in Oman are the richest in many nutrients and are good sources of anti-oxidant properties. Usually, the current available drugs could cause some side effects among the consuming AD patients. Therefore, it is needed to find out drugs without any side effects. The current study was designed to find out the effect of dietary supplementation of figs on the memory anxiety and learning skills in Alzheimer's disease transgenic (APPSW 2576 from Taconic form, NY, USA) mouse model. Animals (32 transgenic and 15 controls) were divided into 3 groups, 1. Wild type, 2. AD mice (both were fed with control diet), 3. AD mice with fig diet (4% diet from Research Diet Inc, USA) for the duration of 9 months. For every 3 months, the behavior of all mice were examined by T-maze test (for position discrimination learning ability), Rota rod test (for psychomotor coordination), elevated plus maze test (for anxiety-related behavior) and open field test to analyze the effect of diet rich in figs on memory, anxiety and learning skills. The results showed that , APP mice that were fed with regular diet demonstrates memory deficit, anxiety-related behavior, and sever impairment in spatial learning ability, position discrimination learning ability and motor coordination compared with wild type mice on the same diet. While, the diets rich in 4% figs when fed to APP mice showed a significant improvement in their behaviors compared to the AD mice on the diet without figs. It was concluded that, the dietary supplementation of figs may have the beneficial effect in reducing the risk, delaying the onset or slowing the progression of AD. Further studies needed to validate and determine the mechanism of action of these fruits against AD.
