Anti-Epileptic Potential of Ziziphus Vulgaris and Ferula Asafoetida Extracts in Drug Induced Seizure Models of Experimental Mice
Abstract
Background: Ziziphus vulgaris (ZV) and Ferula asafoetida (FA) have phenolic compounds with potential anti-epileptic activity.
Objective: This study was aimed to investigate the anti-epileptic potential of hydroalcoholic (30:70) crude extracts of ZV and FA.
Methods: Different doses (5 mg/ml, 15 mg/ml, 25 mg/ml) of extracts from ZV and FA were separately administered intraperitoneally to groups (7/group) of male albino mice (20-30 g). Phenytoin (15 mg/ml, intraperitoneal) was used as positive control. After 30 min, tonic-clonic seizures were induced by intraperitoneal administration of picrotoxin (6 mg/ml) and strychnine (4 mg/ml) in separate groups. Animals were monitored for 1 h and different parameters including onset and frequency of seizures and protection (against mortality & seizures) were determined.
Results: A dose dependent significant delay in onset and decrease in seizure frequency as well as mortality was observed in animals treated with plant extracts (ZV and FA). Positive control (phenytoin) also showed significant delay in seizure onset and decreased the seizure frequency.
Conclusion: The plant extracts (ZV and FA) contain the phenolic compounds which may induce the GABAergic transmission that could be the most probable mechanism for their anti-epileptic activity. Molecular studies and histopathological analysis are required to elucidate the exact anti-epileptic mechanisms of ZV and FA extracts.
Copyright (c) 2020 RADS Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Submitting a manuscript to a journal implies that the work has not previously been published in any other journal, printed or online (save as an abstract or an academic thesis), and that it is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.