A study on monoamine neurotransmitters in ovariectomized female rats with different Chinese herbs treatment

Objective: This study aims to investigate the effect of Chinese herbs treatment of Kidney-strengthening therapy, Spleen-invigorating therapy and Liver-regulating therapy on monoamine neurotransmitters in ovariectomized female rats. Methods: 54 female rats were divided into six groups by random: control group, sham operation group, model group, Spleen-invigorating group, Kidney-strengthening group and Liver-regulating group. Each group contained 9 rats. The organ index of hypothalamic pituitary and uterus and serum serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine (DA) test was compared after treating with 8 weeks. Results: The organ index of hypothalamic pituitary and uterus in model group dcreased with significant difference (p<; 0.05) compared with control group. Compared with model group, the organ index of hypothalamic increased with significant difference(p<;0.05) in Kidney-strengthening, Spleen-invigorating and Liver-regulating therapy groups; and the organ index of pituitary in Kidney-strengthenin and Spleen-invigorating increased with significant difference(p <; 0.05). The the organ index of uterus in all groups treated with Chinese herbs showed no significant difference (p>0.05) comparing with model group. On the effect of serum serotonin and dopamine, model group showed significantly decline in the content of serum serotonin comparing to control group (P<;0.05). Compared with model group, all groups treated with Chinese herbs had significant increase (p<;0.05) in the content of serum serotonin, and there were more increased in Spleen-invigorating group with significant difference (P<;0.05) than other treatment groups. However, the content of serum dopamine showed no statistically significant differences (P>0.05) in all groups treated with Chinese herb formulae. Conclusion: Different Chinese herbs treatment of Spleen-invigorating therapy, Kidney-strengthening therapy and Liver-regulating therapy may improve monoamine neurotransmitters in ovarie- tomized female rats by different targets. Spleen-invigorating group was more effected in improving monoamine neurotransmitters than other two groups.