Evaluation of Antioxidant and Anti Parkinsonism Activity of Betaine in Experimental Rats

Aim and Objectives: The present study was aimed to evaluate anti parkinsonium effect of Betaine for its Applications in trigger factors in pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease and to understand development of new treatments approaches for PD. Betaine is naturally obtained product. It has antioxidant, neuroprotective activity. Hence, we inspected whether betaine can act as a protective agent in 6-OHDA induced oxidative stress on cerebellum of Sprague-Dawleyrats. Material and Methods Thirty-six adult Sprague-Dawley rats were dived into six groups. Rats were received unilateral 6- hydroxydopamine lesions for induction except normal and rats were treated with respective treatment. At the day of 21 rats were sacrificed. Prepared brain homogenate was used for further Biochemical estimation. Result: Betaine showed marked rise in SOD and Catalase activity as well as GSH content subsequently decreasing in the lipid peroxidation process. Our result suggests Betaine to be potent antioxidant at dose 12.5 and 25 mg/kg as compared to standard (L-dopa+Benserazide) and pro-inflammatory cytokines viz: TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6 were significantly reversed by Betaine as compared to that of standard group (L-dopa+ Benserazide). Discussion and Conclusion: Betaine showed dose dependent effect by reducing LPO level as increasing SOD, GSH and Catalase activity and marked reduced proinflammatory cytokine, hence we conclude that betaine has good anti parkinsonism activity. Keywords: 6-OHDA, Antioxidant, Betaine, Pro-inflammatory cytokines

Historical drought patterns over Canada and their teleconnections with large-scale climate signals

Drought is a recurring extreme climate event and among the most costly natural disasters in the world. This is particularly true over Canada, where drought is both a frequent and damaging phenomenon with impacts on regional water resources, agriculture, industry, aquatic ecosystems, and health. However, nationwide drought assessments are currently lacking and impacted by limited ground-based observations. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of historical droughts over the whole of Canada, including the role of large-scale teleconnections. Drought events are characterized by the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) over various temporal scales (1, 3, 6, and 12 consecutive months, 6 months from April to September, and 12 months from October to September) applied to different gridded monthly data sets for the period 1950–2013. The Mann–Kendall test, rotated empirical orthogonal function, continuous wavelet transform, and wavelet coherence analyses are used, respectively, to investigate the trend, spatio-temporal patterns, periodicity, and teleconnectivity of drought events. Results indicate that southern (northern) parts of the country experienced significant trends towards drier (wetter) conditions although substantial variability exists. Two spatially well-defined regions with different temporal evolution of droughts were identified – the Canadian Prairies and northern central Canada. The analyses also revealed the presence of a dominant periodicity of between 8 and 32 months in the Prairie region and between 8 and 40 months in the northern central region. These cycles of low-frequency variability are found to be associated principally with the Pacific–North American (PNA) and Multivariate El Niño/Southern Oscillation Index (MEI) relative to other considered large-scale climate indices. This study is the first of its kind to identify dominant periodicities in drought variability over the whole of Canada in terms of when the drought events occur, their duration, and how often they occur