Abstract

STUDY OF BIOACTIVE CONSTITUENTS AND ANTIDEPRESSANT POTENTIAL OF HYDROALCOHOLIC EXTRACT OF URTICA URENS L. IN MICE

Umme Atifa¹, Hemant Kumar Sharma¹, Prabhakar Budholiya¹, Prabhat Jain²

¹College of Pharmacy, Sri Satya Sai University of Technology and Medical Sciences, Sehore (M. P.)
² Scan Research Laboratories, Bhopal (M.P.)

ABSTRACT

Majority of the antidepressant drugs improve depressive symptoms, but they exert multiple unwanted side effects. The search for more efficacious and well tolerated drugs is in progress. Owning to this, the present study was designed to evaluate the antidepressant activity of hydroalcoholic extract of the aerial parts of UrticaUrens L (HAUU) in mice. It was evaluated using the Tail Suspension Test (TST) and Forced Swimming Test (FST) in mice. The HAUU (250 and 500 mg/kg, po) was administered orally in separate groups of Swiss albino mice weighing 20-25 for 14 days in TST and FST tests. Phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of alkaloids, glycosides, phenols, flavonoids, tannins. The HAUU showed a dose dependant reduction in duration of immobility in mice. The dose of 500 mg/kg of HAUU significantly reduced the immobility time of mice in both FST and TST. The efficacy of extract was found to be comparable to fluoxetine (20 mg mg/kg, po). It was found to be toxicologically safe with no deaths of mice when administered orally at the dose of 2000 mg/kg. From the present study, it can be concluded that the HAUU possess potent antidepressant activity as shown by the TST and FST tests and is toxicologically safe.

Keywords: UrticaUrens L, Depression, Tail suspension test, Forced swimming test, Fluoxetine.