AccScience Publishing / ITPS / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/itps.4795
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Antioxidant effects of curcumin in unilateral spinal cord injury model in adult male rats

Babak Ebrahimi1 ,  Atousa Yarahmadi1 ,  Neda Ghaffari1 ,  Gholamreza Hassanzadeh1,2*
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1 Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
2 Department of Neurosciences and Addiction Studies, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
INNOSC Theranostics and Pharmacological Sciences, 4795 https://doi.org/10.36922/itps.4795
Submitted: 9 September 2024 | Revised: 25 October 2024 | Accepted: 13 November 2024 | Published: 4 March 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Inflammatory responses and oxidative stress (OS) play a significant role in the development of spinal cord injury (SCI), as evidenced by both pre-clinical and clinical studies. This research aimed to assess the potential antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of curcumin (CuC) as a therapeutic approach in a unilateral SCI model using male rats. We used 40 adult male Wistar rats (each weighing 220 – 250 g) that were randomly assigned to one of the five experimental groups: (1) Control (Con), (2) Model (SCI animals), (3) Model+CuC20, (4) Model+CuC40, and (5) Model+CuC80. Accordingly, the SCI animals in Model+CuC20, Model+CuC40, and Model+CuC80 groups received 20, 40, and 80 mg/kg/day of CuC through the intraperitoneal route, respectively. We assessed functional recovery, measured OS indicators, including malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in the blood, and evaluated protein levels of caspase 1, NOD-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3), and apoptosis-associated speck-like protein containing a CARD (ASC) in the spinal cord tissue. The CuC treatment groups showed a significant enhancement in functional recovery, a marked decrease in MDA levels, and a notable elevation in SOD activity relative to the SCI animals. Model+CuC40 and Model+CuC80 animals exhibited a significant improvement in GSH activity and TAC level as compared to the SCI animals. The results also showed a dramatic decrease in the protein concentration of NLRP3, ASC, and Casp1 in the Model+CuC40 and Model+CuC80 groups relative to the Model group (P < 0.0001). In conclusion, the treatment with CuC significantly enhanced functional recovery in SCI rats by effectively mitigating OS and reducing inflammatory markers.

Keywords
Curcumin
Spinal cord injury
Neuroinflammation
Oxidative stress
Funding
We would like to thank the TUMS for financial support (grant number: 52980).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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INNOSC Theranostics and Pharmacological Sciences, Electronic ISSN: 2705-0823 Print ISSN: 2705-0734, Published by AccScience Publishing
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