Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Sedative and Anticonvulsant Activities of the Ethanol Root Extract of Flemingia chappar Benth

Kavita Gahlot^1,2 , Mohd Abid¹, V K Lal¹, S Jha²

¹Department of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, College of Pharmacy, IFTM, Moradabad-244 001, U.P; ²Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra-835 215, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India..

For correspondence:- Kavita Gahlot Email: Kavitapharma@yahoo.co.in Tel:+9109456099848

Received: 31 March 2012 Accepted: 11 January 2013 Published: 24 April 2013

Citation: Gahlot K, Abid M, Lal VK, Jha S. Sedative and Anticonvulsant Activities of the Ethanol Root Extract of Flemingia chappar Benth. Trop J Pharm Res 2013; 12(2):203-208 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v12i2.11

© 2013 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the sedative, hypnotic and anticonvulsant activities of the ethanol extract of the roots of the Flemingia chappar (ERFC) on the central nervous system (CNS) of mice.

Methods: The ethanol extract of the roots of F. chappar in doses of 200, 400 and 600 mg/kg, p.o., was studied in mice for its sedative effect by evaluating its locomotor activity; its hypnotic effect was assessed by measuring pentobarbital–induced sleeping time, while anticonvulsant effect was determined by evaluating its activity on maximal electroshock–induced and pentylenetetrazole-induced seizures. The latency of tonic convulsions and number of animals protected from tonic convulsions were noted.

Results: ERFC (200 - 600 mg/kg) significantly (p < 0.05) decreased locomotor activity. ERFC also produced dose-dependent prolongation of pentobarbitone sleeping time. In addition, ERFC (400 and 600 mg/kg) significantly (p < 0.05) reduced the duration of seizure induced by maximal electroshock (MES), The same dose also protected from pentylenetetrazol-induced tonic seizures and significantly (p < 0.05) delayed the onset of tonic seizures.

Conclusion: The results indicate that the ethanol root extract of F. chappar has sedative and anticonvulsant activities, thus justifying its use in traditional medicine for epilepsy.

Keywords: Flemingia chappar, Anticonvulsant activity, Pentylenetetrazole , Electroshock seizure, CNS depressant