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Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that commonly occurs in the elderly and affects memory, thinking and behaviour. Myrothamnus flabellifolius has been found to possess anti-oxidative properties that could possibly reduce oxidative stress in cells. This study was therefore carried out to investigate the in vivo effect of a crude extract of Myrothamnus flabellifolius on memory in an aluminium chloride induced Alzheimer’s disease mouse model. A total of 42 BALB/c mice were divided into 6 groups. Myrothamnus flabellifolius hydroethanolic extract was administered orally in doses of 100, 200 and 400 mg /kg to 3 of the groups simultaneously with AlCl3. Donepezil plus AlCl3 was used as a positive control and AlCl3 only as the negative control and control received normal saline only. The Y-maze and novel object recognition tests were carried out to ascertain the effects of these treatments on memory. Myrothamnus flabellifolius retained short term memory as demonstrated by the dose dependent increase in spontaneous alternation performance in the Y-maze task. At a dose of 400 mg/kg, it is comparable to the effect of donepezil. M. flabellifolius also showed a positive effect on memory in the short-term novel object recognition test as evidenced by the dose dependent increase in the discrimination index which was higher than that of donepezil. In the long-term memory task, it did not however show any effect on long term memory.