Cellular senescence is characterized by morphological and metabolic changes with emerging neurodegeneration. Recently, senescence has been described as having excessive amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and over-activation of senescence associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) prior mediated loss of synaptic plasticity. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic effects of ethanolic extract of Okra fruit (OKR) on neuronal aging. SK-N-SH cells were pre-incubated with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) for 4 h and then treated with 10, 25, 50, or 75 µg/mL OKR for 24 h. The results demonstrated that OKR significantly promoted cell viability with reduction of ROS content and SA-β-gal positive cells. Additionally, the synaptic plasticity was also improved by inhibiting the AChE activity in OKR administration compared to aging neurons. Interestingly, the OKR was comparable to N-acetylcysteine (NAC). Hence, we propose that OKR could alleviate the negative responses to aging in neurons.
