Correlations Between Cholinesterase Activity and Cognitive Scores in Post-Ischemic Rats and Patients with Vascular Dementia

Abstract

The biochemical changes such as the activities of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) were investigated in rats with global cerebral ischemia and in vascular dementia (VaD) subjects in this study. The AChE activity showed a significant decrease in plasma and a significant increase in the hippocampus but not in the cerebral cortices in the post-ischemic rats as compared to the controls. The learning abilities and spatial memory were impaired in the post-ischemic rats as compared to controls. Furthermore, the AChE activity in plasma was significantly reduced in VaD subjects as compared to normal control subjects. The BuChE activity did not show any change in both post-ischemic rats and VaD patients. Interestingly, the decreased AChE activity in plasma from the post-ischemic rats and the VaD subjects showed a significant correlation with the declined learning and memory ability, and the Mini-Mental State Examination score, respectively. These data suggest that the AChE activity is involved in the cognitive recovery after ischemia, and the plasma level of AChE might be a reliable supplementary peripheral biomarker to evaluate the cognitive recovery degree of VaD patients.

Serum Butyrylcholinesterase Activity: A Biomarker for Parkinson’s Disease and Related Dementia

“…In conclusion, BChE activity can be regarded as a biomarker in PD, especially in PD-related dementia. The same function has also been reported in other disorders, including Alzheimer's disease [ 11 ], vascular dementia [ 25 ], ischemic stroke [ 26 ], traumatic brain injury [ 7 ], postoperative delirium [ 27 ], severe trauma [ 28 ], septic shock [ 29 ], burn injuries [ 30 ], adverse cardiac events [ 16 ], hepatic disease [ 17 ], diabetes [ 31 ], and hyperlipidemia [ 32 ]. A former study on AChE levels in PD patients suggested that polymorphisms in ACHE genes fail to initiate ACHE expression, resulting in an impaired Ach/DA balance and subsequent vulnerability of dopaminergic neurons and PD development [ 9 ].…”

Investigation of the role of non-selective calcium channel blocker (flunarizine) on cerebral ischemic–reperfusion associated cognitive dysfunction in aged mice

“…In the present study, bilateral cerebral I/R injury has induced cognitive dysfunction in aged mice as observed by MWM test (Traystman, 2003). Spatial memory in rats and humans is largely dependent on the hippocampal neurons (Morganti and Riva, 2014;Vallejo et al, 2014) which are highly vulnerable due to cerebral ischemia especially in aged conditions (Xiao et al, 2012). Along with changes of cognitive dysfunction, various other neurobehavioral alterations including motor incoordination, motor impairment and grip strength were observed in our laboratory as well as in other laboratories (Grewal et al, 2013;Gulati et al, 2013;Kumar et al, 2014).…”

Targeting butyrylcholinesterase for preclinical single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging of Alzheimer's disease

“…Thus, BChE may represent a viable diagnostic imaging target which must be carefully considered. In other dementias, such as dementia with Lewy bodies and vascular dementia, there are no reported increases in levels of BChE [49] , [50] . However, for tauopathies, BChE radiotracers will need to be evaluated in appropriate mouse models to determine their specificity.…”