| dc.description | Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the main cause of dementia worldwide. Emerging noninvasive
treatments such as photobiomodulation target the mitochondria to minimize brain damage,
improving cognitive functions. In this work, an experimental design was carried out to evaluate
the effect of transcranial light therapy (TLTC) on synaptic plasticity (SP) and cognitive functions
in an AD animal model. Twenty-three mice were separated into two general groups: an APP/PS1
(ALZ) transgenic group and a wild-type (WT) group. Each group was randomly subdivided into
two subgroups: mice with and without TLTC, depending on whether they would undergo treatment
with TLTC. Cognitive function, measured through an object recognition task, showed non-significant
improvement after TLTC. SP, on the other hand, was evaluated using four electrophysiological
parameters from the Schaffer-CA1 collateral hippocampal synapses: excitatory field potentials
(fEPSP), paired pulse facilitation (PPF), long-term depression (LTD), and long-term potentiation (LTP).
An improvement was observed in subjects treated with TLTC, showing higher levels of LTP than
those transgenic mice that were not exposed to the treatment. Therefore, the results obtained in this
work showed that TLTC could be an efficient non-invasive treatment for AD-associated SP deficits. | |
