Compared with pharmaceuticals, natural medicines are gaining acceptance as countermeasures against radiation injury because of their distinct characteristics, specifically low toxicity and multi-target effects.

The ability of a traditional Chinese medicine, Acanthopanax senticosus (AS), to reduce radiation injury following exposure of the heads of mice to 4 Gy low-linear energy transfer (LET) radiation was assessed histologically, behaviorally and metabolically’’.

Irradiated mice administered AS extract showed improved learning ability and central nervous system (CNS) function. AS extract effectively controlled nerve cell swelling, protein loss, and necrotic tissue liquefaction that was observed in the irradiated mouse brain. Metabolomics data demonstrated that treatment with AS extract resulted in significant quantitative changes of 16 classes of cerebral metabolites in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of irradiated mice. Using a principal component analysis (PCA), three principal components, F1, F2 and F3, were identified as related to brain energy metabolism, brain tissue development, and brain glutamate cycle, respectively. In addition, the F2 and F3 scores of the AS-treated group of mice were higher compared to mice that were treated with Venlafaxine. Furthermore, the efficiency of balancing the glutamate cycle that the AS-treated group achieved was two times greater than that of the mice treated with Venlafaxine.

AS is a promising approach to reduce radiation-induced brain injury. Further studies are warranted to examine the potential of AS to reduce the side effects caused by chemotherapeutics.