OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of penehyclidine combined with edaravone on acute cerebral infarction (ACI) in rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A rat model of middle cerebral artery infarction was created. The rats were randomly divided into sham, model and treatment group. After grouping, rats in the treatment groups were treated with edaravone combined with penehyclidine. The rats in the sham and model group were given an equal volume of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). The therapeutic effects on rats at 3 d and 7 d after treatment were observed, the levels of serum TNF-alpha, interleukin-6 (IL-6) and high-mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1) before and after treatment were compared, and the NDS scores were recorded. RESULTS: After treatment, the effective rate in treatment groups was higher than that in control group. The expression levels of serum TNF-alpha, HMGB1 and IL-6 in treatment groups showed gradually decreasing trends after treatment, and there were significant differences in the levels before and after treatment (p<0.05). At 3 d, the decrease ranges of expression levels of TNF-alpha, HMGB1, and IL-6 in model and treatment groups were larger than those in control group; there were statistically significant differences in the expression levels between the two groups (p<0.05). The NDS score was gradually decreased after treatment, while the activities of daily living (ADL) score were gradually increased after treatment. There were significant differences in the scores between the two groups at each time point (p<0.05). There were positive correlations of the expression levels of serum IL-6 and HMGB1 with the expression level of TNF-alpha (correlation coefficient=0.8731 and 0.9084, p<0.01), and there was also a positive correlation between the TNF-alpha level and the NDS score (correlation coefficient=0.8331, p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Penehyclidine combined with edaravone has a better clinical treatment effect on ACI rats, which can significantly reduce the levels of serum TNF-alpha, IL-6 and HMGB1 and the NDS score, so it is worthy of popularization in clinical application.
