Biol. Pharm. Bull. 29(4) 805—810 (2006)

portant causes of dementia, which are second only to Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly. Based on clinical observations, patients with vascular dementia often show a series of mental disorders, such as personality alterations, memory deficits, and thinking variations. The main pathophysiologic changes in the disorders include neuronal damage, hippocampal sclerosis, abnormal glial cell activation and proliferation, and abnormal changes in some metabolites. The permanent ligation of the bilateral common carotid arteries in rats is a common cerebral ischemic model to study vascular dementia and drug effects on the disorder. Because of the increasing numbers of patients with vascular dementia world wide, research on the protection from and treatment of vascular dementia is becoming a hot topic. However, effective medical and biological measures for treatment the disorder in clinical practice are not well established. The total flavonoids isolated from stems and leaves of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi (TFSS) have been shown to have many important pharmacologic effects on vascular activities. The current study is designed to explore the actions of TFSS on cerebral ischemia in rats induced by permanent ligation of the common carotid arteries.