Hydrocephalus is a developmental disorder causing abnormally collected cerebrospinal fluid within the cerebral ventricles. It leads to bigger skulls and many dysfunctions related to the nervous system. Here, we addressed whether exogenous
melatonin administration could reverse the clinical features of
kaolin-induced
hydrocephalus in infantile rats. A controlled double-blinded study was conducted in 2-week-old 45 Wistar albino rats, which were divided into three groups: Group A, the control group, received intracisternal
sham injection with solely the needle insertion; group B, the
hydrocephalus group, was treated with isotonic NaCl after
kaolin injection; and group C, the
hydrocephalus +
melatonin group, was given i.p. exogenous
melatonin at a dose of 0.5 mg/100 g
body weight after
kaolin injection. Histological and immunohistochemical analyses were performed after the induction of
hydrocephalus and
melatonin administration.
Glial fibrillary acidic protein was stained by immunohistochemical method. TUNEL method was used to define and quantitate apoptosis in the cerebellar tissues. Statistical analysis was performed by nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis H test, and once significance was determined among means, post hoc pairwise comparisons were carried out using Mann-Whitney U test. We found that
melatonin administration significantly ameliorated ratio of substantia grisea area/substantia alba area in the cerebellum of infantile rats. Histologically, there was a significant reduction in the number of cerebellar apoptotic cells after the
hydrocephalus induced by
kaolin (P < 0.05). Our results clearly revealed that the histopathological changes in the cerebellum were reversed by systemic
melatonin administration in infantile rats with
kaolin-induced
hydrocephalus. Nevertheless, further studies are needed to suggest
melatonin as a candidate
protective drug in children with
hydrocephalus.