One of the most important medical-social issues today is the search for new pathogenic directions in pharmacological prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases of the central nervous system. Objective: to investigate enalapril effect on the indices of the nitrogen oxide system and prooxidant-antioxidant balance in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus under conditions of experimental cerebral neurodegeneration. The state of the nitrogen oxide system and prooxidant-antioxidant balance is investigated in the experiment on male rats with scopolamine-induced neurodegeneration (1 mg/kg, 27 days) after enalapril administration in the dose of 1 mg/kg (14 days). Analysis of the obtained data enabled to describe a possible mechanism of enalapril neuroprotective action. It is manifested in decrease of NO2 concentration (1,4 times in both examined structures) and NOS activity (1,6 times in the hippocampus), which is indicative of an increased synthesis of NO as endothelial vasodilator. Correspondingly, a modulating effect on NO system and prooxidant-antioxidant balance (the content of products reacting with 2-thiobarbituric acid 1,1 times decreased in the cerebral cortex, and 1,3 times in the hippocampus compared with untreated rats; catalase activity in the cerebral cortex did not differ reliably from that of the index in the control group, and 1,4 times increased compared with untreated rats) can be considered as constituent mechanisms of enalapril neuroprotective effect under conditions of experimental scopolamine-induced neurodegeneration.
Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors Animals