J Asian Nat Prod Res. 2003 Mar; 5(1): 1-4.

Effect of ginsenoside Rb1 on long-term potentiation in the dentate gyrus of anaesthetized rats.

Wang XY, Zhang JT.

Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, 1 Xian Nong Tan Street, Beijing 100050, China.

Ginsenosides are the major principles of Panax ginseng and have various pharmacological actions on the central nervous system. In this report, we investigated whether ginsenoside Rb1 (10, 100 nmol(-1), icv) could increase the population spike (PS) amplitude in a dose-dependent manner, and accelerate the maintenance phase of long-term potentiation (LTP) induced by high frequency stimulation (HFS) in the dentate gyrus of anaesthetized rats. However, it had no effect on basic synaptic responses evoked by test stimulation. Comparatively, ginsenoside Rb1 (10, 100 nmol l(-1), icv) inhibited the induction phase of LTP induced by HFS in a dose-dependent manner. This may be one of the mechanisms of action of ginsenoside Rb1 on synaptic transmission. The details of the mechanism need further investigation.