Abstract

Moringa oleifera (Moringaceae) is a medicinal plant used in African traditional medicine against cognitive affections and metabolic diseases. In the present study, the neuroprotective effect of Moringa oleifera leaf extract and Fenofibrate was investigated to evaluate their ameliorative effects on learning and memory in Wistar Rats subjected to water immersion restraint stress (WIS). Twenty five Wistar rats weighing 180 – 200g were randomly selected into five groups (n=5): group A: control (CTL) received distilled water 1ml/kg for one month, group B: moringa oleifera leaf (MOL) extract 2ml/kg for one month, group C: fenofibrate (FF) 2ml/kg for one month, group D: received 2ml/kg of Moringa oleifera leaf extract and Fenofibrate for one month, group E: negative non-treated/control and received normal tap water for one month. Animals in all the groups were starved for 24 hours before the onset of stress procedure, but were allowed access to tap water. After administration for one month, changes in animal cognition were assessed in the Novel Object Recognition Task. The results of both the training and test phases showed that, CTL, MOL+WIS and FF+WIS induced significant increase in object recognition (P < 0.05) compared to MOL+FF+WIS and CTL+WIS groups. These results suggest that MOL+WIS and FF+WIS has memory enhancing effect as observed during the training and test phases of the NORT.