Several lines of evidence suggest that
sleep deprivation disrupts cognitive and emotional abilities and changes the expression of distinctive categories of genes in the brain. In the present study, saline- or
MLC901 (a
traditional Chinese medicine)-treated male Wistar rats were first submitted to a modified water box (for 24-h
sleep deprivation) and then trained in contextual and tone fear conditioning tasks with the purpose to evaluate the effect of
MLC901 during
sleep deprivation on fear memory retention. Hippocampal
mRNA measurement was performed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). We found that the exposure of rats to 24 h of
sleep deprivation impaired contextual and tone fear memory retention, while administration of
MLC901 (0.2, 0.4, and 0.8 mg/kg, once/12 h; i.p.) during
sleep deprivation abolished
memory deficits. Meanwhile, different doses of
MLC901 alone had no effect on performance in both tasks. We observed that
MLC901 increased the expression levels of pro-apoptotic BAD, anti-apoptotic Bcl-xL, and Tfam as an index of mitochondrial biogenesis compared to sleep-deprived rats, while
MLC901 during
sleep deprivation increased BAX, BAD, and Bcl-xL compared to the control group.
Sleep deprivation decreased BAX and Tfam, by itself.
MLC901 only decreased BAX and Tfam and increased BAD level compared to the non-sleep-deprived control group. It is suggested that
MLC901 might be a therapeutic option for memory impairment during
sleep deprivation.