Chronic Rumex Patientia Seed Feeding Improves Passive Avoidance Learning and Memory in Streptozotocin-Diabetic Rats

A B S T R A C T Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is accompanied with disturbances in learning, memory, and cognitive skills in the human society and experimental animals. Due to anti-diabetic and antioxidant activity of Rumex patientia (RP), this research study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of chronic Rumex patientia feeding on alleviation of learning and memory disturbance in streptozotocindiabetic rats. Methods: Male Wistar rats were divided into control, diabetic, RP-treatedcontrol and -diabetic groups. For induction of diabetes, streptozotcin (STZ) was administered at a dose of 60 mg/Kg. Meanwhile, RP-treated groups received RP seed powder mixed with standard pelleted food at a weight ratio of 6% for 4 weeks. For evaluation of learning and memory, initial latency (IL) and step-through latency (STL) were determined at the end of study using passive avoidance test. Results: It was found out that regarding initial latency, there was no significant difference among the groups. In addition, diabetic rats developed a significant impairment in retention and recall in passive avoidance test (p<0.01), as it is evident by a lower STL. Furthermore, RP treatment of diabetic rats did produce a significant improvement in retention and recall (p<0.05). Discussion: Taken together, chronic RP feeding could improve retention and recall capability in passive avoidance test in STZ-diabetic rats