Cognition dysfunction of diabetic rats and its relation with apoptosis of frontal lobe cortex and hippocampus

Objective To discuss the relationship between cognition function and apoptosis status in the cortex of frontal lobe and hippocampus of diabetic rats.Methods Learning ability of 28 diabetic rats and 30 normal rats were measured by electric maze after 12 weeks.Then the rats were executed to obtain the brain tissue to estimate the apoptosis cells and expression of bcl-2 and Bax genes in the cortex of frontal lobe and hippocampus.Results The learning ability of diabetic rats were worse than that of control group(P0.001).Apoptosis cells in cortex of frontal lobe and hippocampus were more in DM group than in NC group.The expression of bcl-2 gene was reduced while the Bax gene was increased in diabetic rats versus control rats.The training times for rats to reach the learning standard were correlated positively with the number of apoptosis cells in cortex of frontal lobe and hippocampus in diabetic rats(r=0.410,P0.05),but not in control group(r=0.263,P0.05).Conclusions The increased apoptosis may contribute to cognition dysfunction in diabetes mellitus.