ABSTRACT
Anxiety is a cardinal symptom of many psychiatric disorders and an almost inevitable component of many medical and surgical conditions. Indeed it is a universal human emotion, closely allied with appropriate fear presumably serving pyschobiologically adaptive purposes. Anxiety is a normal emotional behaviour. When it is severe and/or chronic, however, it becomes pathological and can precipitate or aggravate cardiovascular and psychiatric disorders. Although many drugs are available in allopathic medicine to treat anxiety disorders, they produce various systemic side effects. Ursolic acid has been identified as the active principle of Ocimum sanctum. From our laboratory we have established the antianxiety, anticateleptic and antidepressant activity of ethanolic extract of leaves of Ocimum sanctum. In the present study, we have attempted to evaluate the anxiolytic- activity of ursolic acid in rats by employing, elevated plus maze and bright and dark arena. The rats were divided into five groups, each group containing six animals. The effects of the test drug ursolic acid (at 0.05, 0.1 and 0.2 mg/kg doses), the standard anxiolytic, diazepam (1.0 mg/kg) and control group 14% dimethyl sulfoxide (10ml/kg) were assessed after repeated doses administration for ten days. The results suggest that, ursolic acid exhibited anxiolytic like activity comparable to diazepam.
ABSTRACT
Acorus calamus Linn. (Family: Araceae) is an aromatic semi-aquatic perennial marshy herb. Experimental studies have indicated the efficacy of this plant against various types of epileptic seizures, but the results vary with the models and the type of extract used. These conflicting reports and the unavailability of the data regarding the effects of aqueous extract of Acorus calamus (AEAC) prompted us to evaluate the efficacy of AEAC on electrical and chemical induced seizures in albino mice. Either normal saline or sodium valproate or AEAC was given sixty minutes prior to the experiment in acute study, whereas in chronic study, they were given twice daily for ten days and the last dose was given one hour prior to the exposure of the animal either to maximal electrical shock (MES) or pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) administration. On acute administration, AEAC dose dependently reduced the duration of tonic hind limb extension in MES induced seizure which was comparable to that produced by sodium valproate. Whereas, in PTZ induced seizures, the test drug decreased the latency and increased the duration of seizures as well as mortality. On repeated administration (chronic study) the test drug significantly reduced the duration of tonic hind limb extension and also the clonus phase of MES induced seizures. However, in PTZ induced seizures, results were similar to that obtained in acute study. Results indicates that AEAC has protective effect against MES, but not against PTZ induced seizures.
ABSTRACT
Depression is a widespread psychiatric disorder affecting around 5% of the population. Furthermore, it is difficult to predict which patient will respond to any given treatment. In the traditional systems of medicine, many plants and formulations have been used to treat depression for thousands of years. Emblica officinalis (EO) contains tannic acid as its main ingredient and this compound has been shown to have non-selective mono-amine oxidase activity. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to evaluate the antidepressant potential of acute and chronic administration of EO in forced swim test (FST) and tail suspension test (TST). Inbred adult male Swiss Albino mice weighing 25-30g were used in the study. Standard drug (imipramine) and test drug (EO) were suspended in 1% gum acacia. The vehicle (10ml/kg, p.o), imipramine (10mg/kg, p.o) and EO (0.8mg/kg, 2mg/kg, 4mg/kg, p.o. respectively) were administered 1hour prior to acute study. In chronic study, all drugs were given for 10 days and the last dose was given 1hour before the experiment. Duration of immobility was noted in both the models. In our study, both imipramine and EO significantly reduced the duration of immobility in both experimental models as compared to the animals in the control group. The antidepressant activity of EO was comparable to that of standard drug imipramine. The results of the present study indicate the potential for use of EO as an adjuvant in the treatment of depression.