Oral administration of Grifola frondosa polysaccharides improves memory impairment in aged rats via antioxidant action

Scope: Grifola frondosa is an edible/medicinal mushroom with great nutritional value and bioactivity. The present study was performed to evaluate the beneficial effect of polysaccharides isolated from Grifola frondosa on memory impairment in aged rats. Methods and results: 20-month-old rats were gavaged with Grifola frondosa polysaccharides (GFP) for 8 weeks. Morris Water Maze test revealed that GFP administration significantly improved memory impairment in aged rats. GFP supply was also found to attenuate age-associated changes of brain histology and ultrastructure observed by light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Moreover, the increase of total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, catalase (CAT) activity, as well as the decreased nitric oxide (NO) and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels, were consistent with the behavioral results. Conclusion: These findings indicated that oral administration of GFP could improve memory impairment via antioxidant action, and dietary supplementation with GFP may provide potential benefits on brain aging.