Daily Administration of Agmatine Reduced Anxiety-like Behaviors and Neural Responses in the Brains of Male Mice with Persistent Inflammation in the Craniofacial Region.

Background/

Objectives

Chronic craniofacial inflammation is recognized as a factor in anxiety-like behaviors, yet effective therapeutic options remain limited. Agmatine, a dietary bioactive compound found in fermented foods such as sake lees, exhibits modulatory effects on neural functions, alleviating psychological distress like anxiety associated with local inflammation.

Methods

We investigated both the therapeutic and preventive effects of agmatine on anxiety-like behaviors and the related neural basis in a mouse model of persistent craniofacial inflammation induced by complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA).

Results

Comprehensive behavioral assessments, including the elevated plus maze, open field, dark-light box, social interaction, and novel object recognition tests, revealed that therapeutic agmatine administration (1.0 and 30 mg/kg) significantly reduced CFA-induced anxiety-like behaviors, with the higher dose showing more robust and sustained effects across multiple time points. These behavioral improvements were paralleled by reductions in acetylated histone H3, FosB, and c-Fos expression in key anxiety-related brain regions, suggesting a reversal of craniofacial inflammation-associated neural changes. In contrast, preventive agmatine treatment exerted modest and time-dependent behavioral benefits with minimal molecular normalization. Notably, preventive agmatine did not affect general locomotor activity (indicated by total movement distance), indicating that its anxiolytic effects were not confounded by altered locomotor activity. Metabolomic analysis confirmed the presence of agmatine in sake lees (~0.37 mM), supporting the hypothesis that fermented food products might offer dietary routes to emotional resilience.

Conclusions

These findings underscore agmatine's promise as a context-specific epigenetic modulator capable of mitigating anxiety-like behaviors by normalizing inflammation-driven molecular dysregulation in the brain.