PHARMACOLOGICAL AND NEUROBIOCHEMICAL EVIDENCE FOR ANTIDEPRESSANT EFFECT OF PSORALEA CORYLIFOLIA SEEDS EXTRACT.

Selvan, A. Tamil; Dwivedi, Kush; Subramanian, N. Siva; Ramadevi, M.; Prasad, B. Sree Giri; Muthu, Santhosh Kumar

Psoralea corylifolia is also known as babchi has been reported to cure leucoderma, leprosy and psoriasis through indigenous system of medicine by utilizing the seed. In the present study, the seed ethanolic extract of Psoralea corylifolia was investigated for its therapeutic usage as an antidepressant in different preclinical screening methods such as Tail suspension test, locomotor performance by photoactometer and potentiation of Venlafaxine in rodents. Psoralea corylifolia seed extract (200 and 400 mg/kg) showed significant (p<0.001) antidepressant effect in all the animal models studied with the reduction in immobility time in tail suspension method, increase in locomotor performance in photoactometer and venlafaxine potentiation. Venlafaxine (8mg/kg, p.o.) was administered to the animals as standard drug. Psoralea corylifolia exhibited significant antidepressant activity as indicated by its ability in restoring the biogenic amines to normal level that was altered by the swim stress in whole animal rat brain assay by Spectrofluorophotometer method. Also histopathology of animal brain shows structural changes and normalised after the drug treatment. Invitro antioxidant effect of ethanolic extract showed significant enzymatic inhibition of free radical scavenging action in superoxide dismutase, total glutathione, polyphenol oxidase and catalase enzymes. Ethanolic seed extract of Babchi was found to contain flavonoids like gallic acid, chlorogenic acid and its quantification was done by HPTLC showed mgm/ml of active ingredient present in the extract. The ethanolic seed extract of Babchi was subjected to FT-IR analysis and found to contain amines, aldehydes, alkynes, alkanes and carbonyl compounds which were functional groups of the phytochemicals present in the extract. The extract was analysed by GC - MS method showed the presence of ascorbic acid, Hexadecanoic acid, octadecanoic acid, pentadecanoic acid etc present in the extract responsible for the antidepressant action. All these studies and results shows Psoralea corylifolia ethanolic seed extract possess significant antidepressant activity and the phytochemicals which were responsible for it.

HERBAL medicine; ALTERNATIVE treatment for psoriasis; PLANT extracts; ANTIDEPRESSANTS; VENLAFAXINE

Advances in Pharmacology & Toxicology, 2014, Vol 15, Issue 3, p31

0973-2381

Academic Journal