Enhancement of Cognitive Functions by Aronia melanocarpa Elliot Through an Intermittent Ultrasonication Extraction...

To increase the cognitive enhancement provided by Aronia melanocarpa Elliot (Aronia), Aronia was extracted using 70% ethanol solvent and six cycles of intermittent ultrasonication at 120 KHz for 50 min, followed by a rest for 10 min (UE), and was also extracted using 70% ethanol for 24 h at 80°C (EE) as a control process. In both in vivo water maze and passive avoidance tests, the UE showed better performance enhancement than the EE: in the water maze, mice treated with EE and UE showed escape latencies of 62.6 s and 54.3 s, respectively; for passive avoidance, they showed retention times of 45.9 s and 38.9 s, respectively. UE downregulated the expression level of acetylcholinesterase genes to 1.46 times compared with 1.72 for EE. However, there were no significant histological differences in the hippocampus between the mice fed with EE and those fed UE. Additionally, the UE was confirmed to have a greater antioxidant effect, 0.728 versus 0.561 for EE. Comparison of the high-performance liquid chromatography chromatograms of the extracts demonstrates that the intermittent ultrasonication process may improve the cognitive activities of Aronia by eluting higher amounts of cyanidin-3-galactoside (C3G). This work is the first to report that the crude extract from the intermittent ultrasonication process provided better cognitive enhancement than a single major bioactive substance, C3G itself, possibly through the synergistic effects of other anthocyanins present in the extract, such as delphine galactoside, cyanidin arabinoside, and cyanidin glucoside. We also believe that these findings may provide a reliable basis for developing natural plant drugs to compensate for the side effects of purified and/or chemically synthesized single-component drugs rather than to compete with them.