Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 17 pp 17235—17256

Figure 7. Rapamycin ameliorated sevoflurane-induced cognitive dysfunction. Eighteen-month-old rats were subjected to 2% sevoflurane for 5 h (SEV and SEV+Rapa groups). Rapamycin (20 mg/kg/d) was administrated intraperitoneally two days before sevoflurane treatment, and daily administrations were continued for one week (Rapa and SEV+Rapa groups). The Morris Water Maze was used to test memory ability. The parameters escape latency (A) number of platform crossings (B) and quadrant time (C) were measured. Hippocampi were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (D) and the number of pyramidal neurons was counted. (E) The structure of dendritic spines in the hippocampus are shown in (F). The number of dendritic spines in 20 μm at an amplification of 60X were counted for every image. (G) Images show representative examples from three independent experiments for each group. The data are expressed as mean ± SD. (A) P<0.05, Ctrl vs SEV; SEV vs SEV+Rapa. (B, C) (E) (G) P<0.05, Ctrl vs SEV, Rapa, and SEV+Rapa; # P<0.05, SEV vs Rapa and SEV+Rapa; ^ P<0.05, Rapa vs SEV+Rapa.