Introduction: Psychotic disorders affect approximately 0.75% of the general population worldwide with a great risk of complications and mortality. Clozapine and current antipsychotic drugs evoke serious complications. Aphanizomenon flos-aquae (AFA) extract has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties.
Aim of Work: The aim of the work was to evaluate possible therapeutic effects of aphanizomenon flos-aquae extract in psychosis based on behavioral, biochemical and histopathological studies of CA1 region of the hippocampus.
Materials and Methods: Sixty adult male albino rats were organized into five groups; control, AFA extract (200 mg/kg/d orally), psychosis (ketamine 25 mg/kg/d intraperitoneal), psychosis treated with clozapine (5 mg/kg/d intraperitoneal), psychosis treated with AFA extract. Ketamine was administered from day 1 to day 14. Clozapine and AFA extract were administered from day 8 to day 21. Behavioral tests including open field test (OFT), sucrose preference test (SPT) and novel object recognition test (NORT) besides biochemical analyses were conducted. After sacrification of rats, the brain was subjected to histological and immunohistochemical studies.
Results: Ketamine induced positive, negative and cognitive symptoms of psychosis with increased brain acetylcholinesterase activity. Ketamine also induced degenerative changes in the hippocampus with increased glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), P53 positive cells and decreased myelin basic protein (MBP) expression. Clozapine and AFA extract reversed the symptomatic and degenerative changes of psychosis, decreased brain acetylcholinesterase activity, decreased GFAP, P53 positive cells and increased MBP expression. However, clozapine promoted weight gain, dyslipidemia, hyperglycemia and agranulocytosis.
Conclusion: AFA extract has therapeutic effects against ketamine induced psychosis without causing the side effects of clozapine.