Fig. 1. Study design. Ovariectomized (n=16) and sham (n=4) rats (SLC, Inc., Shizuoka, Japan) were fed pellet chow ab libitum for one week after arrival to habituate to laboratory conditions. Starting the second week, rats were fed 50 g of pellet chow per day until the end of the experiment, chow consumption was measured daily, and body weights of a sample of 2-3 rats per group was measured twice per week. At the fourteenth week, ovariectomized rats were randomly sorted into three groups of differing drug treatments: distilled water (OVX; n=5), 10 mg/kg/d alendronate sodium (ALEN, n=5), or 300 mg/kg/d Artemisia princeps Pampanini ethanol extract (AP, n=6). All drugs were administered daily by oral gavage at a volume of approximately 0.1 mL/kg until the end of the experiment. On the second to last day, rats were anesthetized, and cortical and trabecular bone volume fraction and mineral density of the left tibia was scanned. On the last day, rats were anesthetized; after serum extraction by cardiac puncture (results not shown), the rats were sacrificed by fast decapitation and whole brains extracted for electrophysiological analysis.
© Exp Neurobiol
