Abstract

PHYTOCHEMICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL SCREENING OF ANTIDEPRESSANT ACTIVITY OF ETHANOLIC EXTRACT OF VITEX LEUCOXYLON

P. Sailaja*, Y. Prapurnachandra, M. Manaswini, M. Uma, N. Sai Varshitha, S. Tasleem and L. Vinod

ABSTRACT

Depression is a significant psychiatric condition that has a direct impact on person’s quality of life and relationships. Escitalopram, a conventional selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, was used for this study. In this work, we used two animal models: FST and TST. Both paradigms are well acknowledged behavioral models for evaluating pharmaceutical antidepressant effects. Male Swiss Wistar rats were used were divided into five groups. Drugs/vehicles were administered to the animals 60 minutes before the study. These tests identify immobility as a sign of hopelessness, similar to depression. This study is the first to indicate that the leaf ethanolic extract of Vitex leucoxylon has strong antidepressant effect in TST and FST models of depression and had considerable antidepressant efficacy, reducing immobility during depression in animal models.

Keywords: Vitex leucoxylon, Depression, behavioral models, immobility.