Kelulut honey is a local stingless bee honey in Malaysia and has been consumed due to
its therapeutic value and high antioxidant content. The antioxidant in honey will helps in
giving memory-enhancing effects and improving brain function. However, reports on
nootropic effect of this stingless bee honey are still unclear. Therefore, this study aims
to investigate the physicochemical and antioxidant constituents of local-harvested
stingless bee honey and their effect to spatial learning and memory performance after
supplementation to mice. In this study, the physicochemical and antioxidant content of
seven stingless bee honey samples (Pasir Mas, Kelantan) were analysed using various
spectrophotometric assay and high performance liquid chromatography method. For
behaviour study, female Swiss albino mice (N=35) were divided into five groups that
consist of four honey-treated groups (n=28) and one untreated control group (n=7). The
acute (7 days) and semi-chronic (35 days) honey-treated group mice were supplemented
with two dosages of honey (750 mg/kg and 2000 mg/kg) daily via oral gavage. After the
treatment period (7 days and 35 days), the mice were then tested with open field test to
measure their locomotor activity. Then, they were tested with Morris water maze
(MWM) behavioural task to evaluate for their spatial learning and memory performance.
Results for physicochemical and antioxidant analysis showed that the highest antioxidant
content was detected from Ita-7-TS sample with 57.38 ± 0.24% anti-radical activity;
853.958 ± 150.04 mg GAE/kg honey of total phenolic content; and 1245.00 ± 204.63 mg
of quercetin equivalent/kg honey of total flavonoid content. In the MWM test results, the
honey-treated group mice showed a decreased in escape latency during acquisition
testing. In probe trial test, results showed that all the honey-fed mice group had
significant visit (p =.008) and spent more time (p =.000) in the previous platform
quadrant as compared to control group, indicating a significant improvement in reference
memory. Both semi-chronic treated mice also shown better performance than acute
treated mice in dose dependent manner. The high antioxidant potential of the analysed
stingless bee honey samples are due to its polyphenols content such as phenolic acid and flavonoid. This polyphenols are phytochemical compounds that give scavenging
activities and can activate antioxidant defend system in the brain, hence providing
nootropic and neuroprotective effects against brain oxidative stress and tissue damage.
This will results in improvements of cognitive function including promoting learning and
memory by modulating synaptic plasticity through synaptogenesis. Therefore, the
positively significant results from this study, especially on reference memory may
suggest that this stingless bee honey supplementation can increase the learning and
memory performance in mice, possibly due to its high antioxidant content