Administration of chitosan evoked PPAR activations in brain and stomach. These findings suggested that chitosan might affect the biological events in brain and stomach. It has been shown that PPARs play important roles in the pathogenesis of various disorders of central nervous system. For examples, activation of PPARs suppresses inflammation in peripheral macrophages and in models of human autoimmune diseases [35]. Activation of all PPAR isoforms has been found to be protective in murine models of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's diseases [36], [37]. In this study, ex vivo imaging showed that chitosan activated the PPAR activity in the brain and the KEGG pathway analysis showed that chitosan significantly regulated the expression of genes involved in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (p=0.012). These findings suggested that chitosan might exhibit the beneficial effect on the neurodegenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's diseases.
