Antipsychotic-like effect of ethyl acetate fraction of Terminalia macroptera leaf in mice

Abstract

Psychosis is a chronic neuropsychiatric disorder that affects millions of individuals worldwide and impairs the quality of life and productivity of the patients. Terminalia macroptera Guill & Perr. (Combrataceae) is a plant that is used in the management of anxiety related disorders. The present study investigates the antipsychotic effects of ethyl acetate fraction of T. macroptera (EFTM) leaf in ketamine-induced psychosis in mice. Acute toxicity of EFTM was determine using Lorke’s method. Ketamine (25 mg/kg) was injected once daily for 7 consecutive days in Swiss albino mice to induce psychosis. The effect of the extracts (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg) was evaluated against psychotic-like behaviors induced by ketamine including locomotor activity and stereotypy in the open field test, immobility duration in the forced swim test, and memory impairment using the Y- maze test. The acute antipsychotic effect of EFTM was evaluated on apomorphine climbing test, while woodblock test was performed to assess its extrapyramidal side effects. The LD 50 was found to be 3807 mg/kg p.o. which is considered safe. EFTM (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg) exhibited significant antipsychotic effect by reducing ketamine-induced hyperactivity, immobility, and memory deficit in mice, EFTM also suppressed stereotypic climbing behavior due to apomorphine. Accordingly, the antipsychotic activity of EFTM was not associated with extrapyramidal side effects as evidenced by lack of catalepsy. The study revealed that EFTM ameliorated psychotic-like symptoms and is devoid of extrapyramidal side effects in mice, underscoring its antipsychotic-like effect.

Isolation and structure elucidation of cyclohexanepentol, an anti-psychotic agent from Cissampelos owarensis (P. Beauv.) leaves

“…The antagonism of ketamine-induced hyper-locomotion and stereotype behaviours by CO crude extract and fractions, suggest antipsychotic property of the plant. This observation was supported by earlier reports in which Terminalia macroptera (Ior et al, 2021), Terminalia ivorensis (Ben-Azu et al, 2016), Bacopa monniera (Chatterjee et al, 2015) and Viscum album (Gupta et al, 2012) inhibited ketamine-induced behavioral paradigms in mice. Efficiency of most antipsychotic drugs are limited to the extra pyramidal effect associated with it, this effect is said to result from lower dopamine activity in the brain striatal.…”

“…The crude extract of Cissampelos owariensis alongside its fractions were screened for their effect on behavioural studies. The in vivo animal models used in this study include ketamineinduced hyper locomotion, ketamine-induced stereotype behaviour as described by Chatterjee et al (2015) and catalepsy (Ior et al, 2021;Arowona et al, 2014). The crude extract of CO significantly lowered the number of lines crossed at 125 mg/kg (*p <0.05).…”

Biopestcidal Potentials of Erythrophleum Africanum (Benth.) Harms Stembark and Leaf Extracts for the Management and Control of Termites

“…Herbal medicines have become vital substitute to orthodox therapy as studies are now focused on searching for new and safer molecules from natural resources [34]. With the increase in the use of medicinal plants, screening plant products to evaluate their toxic characteristics is an important initial step [35]. Furthermore, data from the acute toxicity study may serve as the basis for classi cation and labelling of the test material [36].…”

Medicinal Plants Used in the Management of Psychosis

“…Interestingly many of these plants were studied and found to have lesser side effects e.g. catalepsy [12][13][14][15] indicating that these plants may not cause extrapyramidal side effects in humans.…”

“…The study revealed that T. macroptera could ameliorate psychotic symptoms indicating protective effects in psychosis. Agent that ameliorate ketamine induced psychotic symptoms are generally thought to act in a similar manner as atypical antipsychotics [12].…”