Your question is a general question, If you want to prove that this chemical has neuroprotective effect, you need to design a study that contain molecular, biochemical and behavioral analysis i,e you need to find a model, cellualr or animal one but would recommend starting with a cellular model and transfect these cells with the drug. If you want to start an animal study then you need to find a good animal model, and to introduce the drug as acute or chronic exposure then determine targeted molecular assays.

Best of luck 

Hi Fatma,

If you are interested in demonstrating that your drug can protect neurons from death there are a number of ways to go about this (as Mohamed mentioned). One simple cell culture method that I have used in the past involves incubating neuronal cells in your specific drug and then introducing some kind of toxic stimuli. Since you are dealing with memory, perhaps you would like to use some kind of endogenous stimuli that can be toxic to neurons, as opposed to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or some other exogenous compound. Depending on the stimuli you chose to use, this can help you identify the mechanism of action. Ie. Does the drug inhibit apoptosis or lysis.

A simple set up would include the use of at least five gropus of cells: 1. cells without any treatment 2. cells treated with vehicle control only 3. cells treated with drug only 4. cell treated with toxic stimuli only 5. cells treated with the drug and then treated with toxic stimuli.  You can then determine the effect of your drug on neuronal survival. It would likely be most beneficial if you had a range of drug concentrations used. 

You can then assess for the number of living neuronal cells after the treatment by a number of assays, such as the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assay, or by performing cell staining for all cells, as well as dead cells to determine the ratio of dead cells: all cells. Alternatively, you could measure the metabolic activity of the neurons indirectly by something like the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium(MTT) assay.

If you find an answer to your question this way, you can further investigate the mechanism of action by repeating the experiments using blocking reagents or antibodies to inhibit specific receptors and/or pathways in order to help determine the mechanism of action. 

These are just a few simple suggestions, there are many ways to approach this type of questions. 

Best of luck,

Lindsay

Here are a couple of papers that explain similar techniques. 

How can I design a study to test the neuroprotective effect of a fruit using albino wistar rats?? Pls can you treat this as urgent??