A comparative study of neurobehavioral changes induced by rotenone through oral and intraperitoneal administration

Parkinson’s disease is one of the major neurological disorders seen worldwide and associated with many motor and nonmotor symptoms. Rotenone-induced motor and behavior impairments could involve the gut-brain axis which is emphasized in several recent works. To explore how oral and intraperitoneal rotenone toxicity impacts neurobehavioral alterations in Wistar rats. The effect of intraperitoneal (3 mg/kg body weight 21 days) and oral (50 mg/kg body weight for 28 days) rotenone toxicity in male Wistar rats on various neurobehavioral parameters viz., rotarod, actophotometer, rearing behavior and elevated plus maze was comparatively studied. The neurobehavioral studies such as the Rota-rod test, rearing behavior, Elevated plus maze (EPM), and Actophotometer were performed by following standard published protocols and by utilizing the facilities available at the Institution. Kruskal-Wallis one- way ANOVA on ranks with Student-Newman-Keul’s multiple comparisons was used. It was found that both oral and intraperitoneal rotenone treatments had a significant impact on neurobehavioral parameters when compared to their respective controls. Although there were few differences observed in the study set behavioral parameters between intraperitoneal and oral rotenone treatments, it was not significant. The study findings suggest that neurobehavioral alterations caused by oral or intraperitoneal rotenone toxicity are found to be significant. The fact that oral rotenone toxicity has gut-brain axis- related problems can also have a role in PD-related motor/movement and anxiety behavior dysfunctions.