RESUMO
Background@#Datura metel (DM) stramonium is a medicinal plant often abused by Nigerians due to its psychostimulatory properties. Hallucinations, confusion, agitation, aggressiveness, anxiety, and restlessness are reported amongst DM users. Earlier studies suggest that DM induces neurotoxicity and affect brain physiology. However, the exact neurological effects of DM extract in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampal morphology have not been elucidated. In this study, we evaluated the hypothesis that oral exposure to DM extract exerts a neurotoxic effect by increasing oxidative stress in the mPFC and the hippocampus and induces behavioral deficits in mice. @*Results@#DM methanolic extract exposure significantly increased MDA and NO levels and reduced SOD, GSH, GPx and CAT activities in mice brains. In addition, our results showed that DM exposure produced cognitive deficits, anxiety, and depressive-like behaviour in mice following oral exposure for 28 days. Moreover, the mPFC and hippocampus showed neurodegenerative features, loss of dendritic and axonal arborization, a dose-dependent decrease in neuronal cell bodies’ length, width, area, and perimeter, and a dose-dependent increase in the distance between neuronal cell bodies. @*Conclusions@#Oral exposure to DM in mice induces behavioural deficits, mPFC and hippocampal neuronal degenerations via redox imbalance in the brain of mice. These observations confirm the neurotoxicity of DM extracts and raises concerns on the safety and potential adverse effects of DM in humans.
RESUMO
This study was designed to physiologically investigate the fate of stress related infertility conditions to focus on the regulatory response of reproductive potentials in stress-induced female Wistar rats supplemented with clomifene citrate. 42 apparently healthy female Wistar rats weighing about 120-160 g were used in the study. The animals were randomly distributed into 3 groups after acclimatization for 2 weeks. Group 1 served as the control pregnant rats not induced by restraint, mirrored and intruder stressors, group 2 consisted of rats treated with 0.013 mg/g of clomifene citrate drug and exposed to three different stressors while group 3 represented pregnant rats exposed to different stressors but not treated with clomifene citrate. At the end of 3weeks, the rats were euthanized via cervical dislocation. The uterus and ovary organs were carefully isolated, weighed and examined for histological changes. The reproductive capacities studied were gestation period, mean pup weight, litter size and survival rate respectively. Data collected is expressed in Mean±SEM and one way ANOVA statistics was used for comparison of means while Fisher's LSD was employed for post hoc test and the level of significance is determined at p-value < 0.05. Results from our study revealed that restraint and intruder stressors following supplementation with clomifene citrate produced similar stress response in the gestation length, pub-weights, litter size and percentage of survival. Stress of different nature altered the histoarchitecture of the ovary and the uteri of rats exposed to restraint or intruder stressor. Meanwhile, Clomifene citrate administration produced effect on ovulation and pregnancy outcome of stressed pregnant rats and the survival ratio of the offspring.
