Lactulose+enhances+neuroplasticity+to+improve+cognitive+function+in+early+hepatic+encephalopathy.pdfVIP

NEURAL REGENERATION RESEARCH September 2015,Volume 10,Issue 9 RESEARCH ARTICLE Lactulose enhances neuroplasticity to improve cognitive function in early hepatic encephalopathy * * Nan Yang, He Liu, Yao Jiang, Ji Zheng, Dong-mei Li, Chao Ji, Yan-yong Liu , Ping-ping Zuo Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences School of Basic Medicine, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China Abstract *Correspondence to: Lactulose is known to improve cognitive function in patients with early hepatic encephalopa- Yan-yong Liu, Ph.D. or Ping-ping Zuo, thy; however, the underlying mechanism remains poorly understood. In the present study, we Ph.D., liuyanyong@126.com or investigated the behavioral and neurochemical effects of lactulose in a rat model of early hepatic Pingping_zuo@126.com. encephalopathy induced by carbon tetrachloride. Immunohistochemistry showed that lactulose treatment promoted neurogenesis and increased the number of neurons and astrocytes in the orcid: hippocampus. Moreover, lactulose-treated rats showed shorter escape latencies than model rats 0000-0003-2979-6017 (Yan-yong Liu) in the Morris water maze, indicating that lactulose improved the cognitive impairments caused 0000-0002-2874-8032 (Ping-ping Zuo) by hepatic encephalopathy. The present findings suggest that lactulose effectively improves cog- nitive function by enhancing ne