At present, there is a growing interest in the study of the neurotropic activity of
polyunsaturated fatty acid ethanolamides (
N-acylethanolamines).
N-docosahexaenoylethanolamine (
DHEA), or
synaptamide, an endogenous metabolite of
docosahexaenoic acid, is a promising compound with anti-inflammatory activity. The results of this study demonstrate that
synaptamide, when administered subcutaneously (4 mg/kg/day, 35 days), promotes a decrease in cold
allodynia and
mechanical hyperalgesia in a rat sciatic nerve chronic constriction injury (CCI) model. After CCI,
synaptamide treatment enhanced the remyelination process in the site of sciatic nerve injury (33.4 ± 1.1% in the CCI+Syn group, compared to 28.4 ± 0.9% in the CCI group). Further,
synaptamide suppressed the CCI-induced increase in the activity of microglia (13.1 ± 0.5% in CCI+Syn, compared to 15.3 ± 0.7% in the CCI group) and the number of
nitric oxide synthase-positive neurons (58,307 ± 5,206 cells/mm3 in CCI+Syn, compared to 80,288 ± 4,287 cells/mm3 in the CCI group) in the dorsal horns of the spinal cord, and also reduced the concentration of
interleukin 1 beta in the spinal cord (169.3 ± 4 pg/mg of
protein in CCI+Syn, compared to 236.9 ± 9.3 pg/mg of
protein in CCI group) 35 days after surgery.
Synaptamide treatment resulted in decrease of reactive
astrogliosis in the spinal cord dorsal horns to 20.8 ± 1.3%, which occurred simultaneously with a decrease in the
substance P (SP) level (9.8 ± 0.5%) compared to vehicle-treated animals (30.2 ± 2.2% and 13.4 ± 0.9% of astroglia and SP staining area, respectively). In addition,
synaptamide increased
superoxide dismutase activity up to 68.6 ± 0.8% (control 50.6 ± 0.9%) in astrocyte culture. Thus,
synaptamide provides anti-inflammatory and
neuroprotective effects in both peripheral and central nervous system after sciatic nerve injury.