Anti-aging effect of moringa oleifera in rats model using novel object recognition test

Oxidative stress causes inflammatory diseases including neurodegenerative disease, which will affect the memory. A study has shown that increased oxidative stress in the brain can lead to age-related cognitive dysfunction (Mattson, 2004). This is due to the reduction in the neurotransmitters, which is essential for memory processing and learning functions (Calabrese et al., 2003; Kopelman, 2002). This study aims to investigate the effect of Moringa oleifera in its ability to enhance memory by recognizing a novel object. M. oleifera Lam. or also known as horseradish (Guevara et al., 1999) is a good source of natural antioxidants and demonstrated memory­ enhancing effect. This effect might occur partly via the decreased oxidative stress and the enhanced cholinergic function (Sutalangka et al., 2013). A similar study has been conducted by Sutalangka et al. (2013) on the effect of Moringa oleifera in reduces memory impairment and neurodegeneration in an animal model of age­ related dementia on male Wistar rats. The study founds out that M. oleifera leaves extract possesses the neuroprotective and memory-enhancing effect. While the previous study uses Morris water maze as their parameter, my study aims to investigate the memory enhancing effect of M. oleifera using another parameter, which is the novel object recognition (NOR) test. This study used a different species of rats, which is the Sprague-Dawley rat. The results showed that the aged rats induced with galactose have reduced ability to recognize novel objects. Aged rats treated with Moringa oleifera shows the ability to recognize novel object. However, the study needs to be repeated to replicate the results.