EVALUATION OF CURCUMIN AGAINST CUPRIZONE INDUCED MOUSE MODEL OF MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic demyelinating disorder that affects the neurons in the central nervous system. The current drugs used for the treatment of MS are expensive and involves toxicity related issues, so there is a need to discover inexpensive and less toxic approaches for the treatment of MS. Curcumin (CCM) is a phytochemical that was shown to exhibit beneficial effects due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. CCM was reported to inhibit MS induced by Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in rodents. The present study focuses on ability of CCM to attenuate demyelination caused by the administration of CPZ, one of the most widely used model to study demyelination and remyelination process in MS. The parameters estimated were body weight, biochemical parameters, locomotor activity, luxol fast blue (LFB) staining. The animals administered with CPZ showed significant loss in body weight CCM attenuates this effect, it also normalized the behavioural changes and biochemical parameters that were altered in CPZ treated mice. It is concluded that CCM has the potential to attenuate CPZ induced demyelination. Keywords: Multiple sclerosis, Curcumin, Cuprizone, Demyelination, Luxol fast blu