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Therapeutic Intervention of Learning and Memory Decays by Salidroside Stimulation of Neurogenesis in Aging

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Abstract

Cognition in all mammals including human beings declines during aging. The cellular events responsible for this decay involve a reduction of neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus. Here, we show that treatment with a nature product from a traditional Chinese medicine, namely salidroside restores the capacity of the dentate gyrus to generate new neurons and intercepts learning and memory decays in mice during aging. We uncover that new neurons in aging mice have functional features of an adult granule neuron by forming excitatory synapses with their putative targeting neurons. Genetic inhibition of synaptic transmission from new neurons abolishes the therapeutic effects of salidroside in behavioral tests. We also identify that salidroside targets CREB transcription for the survival of new neurons in the dentate gyrus of old mice. Thus, salidroside is therapeutically effective against learning and memory decays via stimulation of CREB-dependent functional neurogenesis in aging.

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Acknowledgments

The authors greatly thank Ping Zhang (HUST) for drug treatments and Ling-Qiang Zhu (HUST) for the comments on this manuscript. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81130079 YL, 91232302 YL, 81301165 HJ) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2014M552047 HJ).

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430030, Wuhan, China

    Huijuan Jin, Lei Pei, Xin Yang, Na Wei, Honglin Yan, Shan Wang, Chengye Yao & Youming Lu

  2. Translational Medical Research Center, The Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430022, Wuhan, China

    Xiaogang Shu, Yan Wu & Lin Wang

  3. Department of Physiology, China Pharmaceutical University, No. 24, Tong Jia Xiang Street, 210009, Nanjing, China

    Tianhua Yan

  4. Department of Genetics, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430030, Wuhan, China

    Dan Liu

  5. Institute of Brain Research, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430030, Wuhan, China

    Huijuan Jin, Lei Pei, Xiaogang Shu, Xin Yang, Yan Wu, Na Wei, Honglin Yan, Shan Wang, Chengye Yao, Dan Liu, Qing Tian, Lin Wang & Youming Lu

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  1. Huijuan Jin
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Correspondence to Lin Wang or Youming Lu.

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Huijuan Jin, Lei Pei, and Xiaogang Shu contributed equally to this work.

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Jin, H., Pei, L., Shu, X. et al. Therapeutic Intervention of Learning and Memory Decays by Salidroside Stimulation of Neurogenesis in Aging. Mol Neurobiol 53, 851–866 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12035-014-9045-6

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