Vitamin C Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Vitamin C, including details on benefits, dosage, supplements, information.

Anti-oxidant effect of ascorbic and dehydroascorbic acids in hippocampal slice culture.

Kim EJ, Won R, Sohn JH, Chung MA, Nam TS, Lee HJ, Lee BH

Department of Physiology, Brain Research Institute, Brain Korea 21 Project for Medical Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, C.P.O. Box 8044, Seoul 120-752, Republic of Korea.

Ascorbic acid (AA) and dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) have been shown to have protective effects as anti-oxidants in experimental neurological disorder models such as stroke, ischemia, and epileptic seizures. The present study was conducted to examine the protective effects of AA and DHA on kainic acid (KA) neurotoxicity using organotypic hippocampal slice cultures. After 12h KA treatment, significant delayed neuronal death was detected in the CA3, but not the CA1, region. Pretreatment with intermediate doses of AA and DHA significantly prevented cell death and inhibited reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, and mitochondrial dysfunction in the CA3 region. In contrast, pretreatment with low or high doses of AA or DHA was not effective. These data suggest that pretreatment with both AA and DHA has dose-dependent neuroprotective effects on KA-induced neuronal injury through inhibiting ROS generation and mitochondrial dysfunction.

Published 25 December 2007 in Biochem Biophys Res Commun, 366(1): 8-14.
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