The dose determination of deprenyl on the spinal cords motoneurons after sciatic nerve transection

Background: Deprenyl has a neuroprotective effect on the spinal cords motoneurons. Objective: The purpose of this research was to determine the anti-apoptotic effect of deprenyl on weight, death and number of motoneurons of axotomized newborn rats. Methods: In the present study 100 newborns of spragus-Dawley rats were anesthetized with hypothermia and then their left sciatic nerve was cut in the middle of the thigh. In the experimental groups, neonatal rat were injected intraperitoneally with 0.25, 10, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 100, 110 mg/kg of deprenyl respectively and control group received an equal volume of distilled-water. For each dose, 10 animals were used. The first injection was performed one hour after axotomy and the injection was lasted for 3 weeks, daily. Then the axotomized animals were sacrified. The normality of the data was confirmed by K-S test. Findings: Linear regression by animal survival rate, Boby weight, and percentage of survival motoneurons according to the correlation coffecient were r = -0.922, r = -0.879 and r = 0.605 respectively. Varience analysis also showed that there were significant difference between doses. Conclusion: The morphological data also indicated that deprenyl has an anti-apoptotic on the spinal motoneurons in the axotomized neonatal rat.