Background and aims Hypoxic-ischaemic (H-I) brain injury in the human perinatal period often leads to significant long-term neurobehavioral dysfunction in the cognitive and sensory-motor domains. The aim of the present study investigated that effect neuroprotective of different dosages of pentoxifylline in neonatal rat model of HIE.

Methods H/I was performed according to the Levine-Rice model on postnatal seven-day-old. Wistar rat pups were randomly divided into four groups as: sham-operated group (n = 17), H/I(n = 16), H/I and intraperitoneal Pentoxifylline 60 mg/kg-treated group (n = 17) and HI and intraperitoneal Pentoxifylline 100 mg/kg-treated group (n = 17). Twenty-three rat pups, twenty-four hours after hypoxia, the animals were killed for histopathological evaluation to detect apoptosis by caspase-3 immunohistochemistry method. The other rat pups were grown to 11 weeks. The synaptic plasticity and cognitive function of rats were evaluated using long term potentiation (LTP) and Morris water maze (MWM) test on D77–D82, respectively.

Results Pentoxifylline 60 mg/kg two doses treatment decreased the number of caspase-3 positive cells that showed the typical morphological features of apoptosis in only hippocampus (p0.05) but, total numbers of degenerative cell significantly diminished.

Conclusions Low dose pentoxifylline treatment is protective against both brain injury and memory impairment and synaptic plasticity.