Background: Deltamethrin (DM) is a synthetic pyrethroid insecticide that can elicit neurotoxicity, and lead to apoptosis. There is accumulating evidence that OLEUROPEIN (OE) has anti-apoptotic effect. This study aimed at determining the DM toxicity and anti-apoptotic effect of OE pretreatment in cerebellar Purkinje neurons.Materials and Methods: Rats were randomly divided into four groups as follow: DM treated group (12.5 mg/kg; single dose), OE treated group (20 mg/kg per day), DM plus OE treated group, and vehicle group. Sections of cerebellum were taken 24 hours after deltamethrin injection and studied for histopathological and immunohistochemistry assessments.Results: Further characteristics of degeneration in Purkinje neurons were observed in DM group compared with DM plus OE group. Compared with DM group (9.56±1.69), the positive staining for Bax in Purkinje neurones decreased in DM plus OE group (2.99±0.50) but upper than OE (0.72±0.15) and vehicle (0.57±0.03) groups. Compared with DM group (0.50±0.05), the positive staining for Bcl-2 in Purkinje neurons increased in DM plus OE group (3.29±0.18) but lower than OE (4.38±0.80) and vehicle (5.87±1.93) groups.Conclusions: Our results suggest that DM induces apoptosis in Purkinje cells which is subsided by OLEUROPEIN.

In this study, it was surveyed to know whether an oral single dose of OLEUROPEIN could mimic the cardiac preconditioning in rats’ hearts or whether its prolonged oral administration could protect the heart against the aconitine-induced arrhythmia in rats.Eighty male Wistar rats were divided into two series (n=8 in each group). In the first series, all groups (except the control (Con) group) were given a single oral dose of OLEUROPEIN (20 mg/Kg) 1, 3, 24 and 48 h before the infusion of aconitine. In the second series, except the Con group, the other four groups were given oral OLEUROPEIN (20 mg/Kg/day) for 3, 7, 14 and 28 days, before the infusion of aconitine. Electrocardiogram was recorded to monitor arrhythmia.Data of the first series showed that the initiation time of arrhythmia, the initiation of ventricular tachycardia (VT), the numbers of reversible ventricular fibrillation (VF) and the death time had no significant difference compared with Con group. In the second series, a significant protection was occurred only in the 28 days group that was evident with increased initiation time of arrhythmia, increased initiation time of VT, and increased the number of reversible VF and death time in compared to the Con group.The findings of this study show that the oral administration of a single dose of OLEUROPEIN could not mimic the preconditioning effects in rat hearts, but the prolonged administration of OLEUROPEIN for about four weeks could protect the heart against aconitine-induced arrhythmia.