Neuroinflammation is a pathological hallmark of many neurological disorders associated with mental health conditions. In the stages of brain immune trauma or infections, an adaptive response in behavior which resulted from the conserving energy to fight acute inflammation was observed. We examined the chemical intervention effects on the rat serum metabolites, and associated with the physiological sickness behavior such as anxiety, exploration and reduction of locomotor. Metabolic dysregulation in serum of LPS-induced rats was observed at 0 and 14th day after treatment with Clinacanthus nutans (CN) aqueous leaf extracts. CN is a well-known herbal plant used for its inflammatory remedies. Yet there is no discovery on the brain inflammation. Hence, 25 rats were undergone unilateral stereotaxic injection of 10µl LPS (1mg/ml), a toxin potent inducer of inflammation, into the substantia nigra pars compacta. Another ten rats were induced with phosphate buffer saline (PBS, 10µl) as control. Observation on 29 parameters of the rat’s behavior related to sickness was tracked with device software (SMART 3.0.1, Panlab Harvard Apparatus) for pre and post- treatment. The impact of pharmacological interventions of LPS, CN extracts (250, 500 and 1000mg/kg of rats BW) and control drug (dextromethorphan hydrobromide, 5mg/kg of rats BW) was observed in the 1H NMR serum metabolites variation by using metabolomic approach. All collected data were analyzed using Multivariate Data Analysis (SIMCA) from which pattern trend of related group was documented using orthogonal partial least squares (OPLS). The results revealed that both behavior and metabolite changes correlated with each other (R2=0.79). A similar ameliorated striking pattern of correlation between improvement in physiological sickness behavior and anti-inflammatory biomarker in 1H NMR sera were detected.
Keywords: neuroinflammation; LPS-induced rats; Clinacanthus nutans; 1H NMR metabolomics