doi:10.1155/2012/302682 Research Article Increased Oxidative Stress and Imbalance in Antioxidant Enzymes in the Brains of Alloxan-Induced Diabetic Rats

Copyright © 2012 Luciane B. Ceretta et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is associated with pathological changes in the central nervous system (SNC) as well as alterations in oxidative stress. Thus, the main objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of the animal model of diabetes induced by alloxan on memory and oxidative stress. Diabetes was induced in Wistar rats by using a single injection of alloxan (150mg/kg), and fifteen days after induction, the rats memory was evaluated through the use of the object recognition task. The oxidative stress parameters and the activity of antioxidant enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase (CAT) were measured in the rat brain. The results showed that diabetic rats did not have alterations in their recognition memory. However, the results did show that diabetic rats had increases in the levels of superoxide in the prefrontal cortex, and in thiobarbituric acid reactive specie