Evaluation of anxiolytic activity of the essential oil of the aerial part of Foeniculum vulgare Miller in mice

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Kaleab Asres¹  Miraf Mesfin²  Workineh Shibeshi² 

[1] Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmacognosy, School of Pharmacy, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia;Department of Pharmacology and clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia;

关键词: Anxiolytic activity;    Foeniculum vulgare;    Essential oil;    Mice;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-310

 received in 2014-03-06, accepted in 2014-08-19,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFoeniculum vulgare locally known as ensilal, is an aromatic plant widely cultivated in temperate and tropical regions. The anti-anxiety activity of the crude extract of F. vulgare has been reported. However, the fraction responsible for anxiolytic activity is not known and there is no any report on the anti-anxiety activity of the essential oil of F. vulgare. The objective of study was to evaluate the anxiolytic activity of the essential oil of Foeniculum vulgare Miller.MethodsAdult Swiss albino male mice were randomly divided into six groups (n = 6). Groups I and II received Tween 80 (5%, v/v) and diazepam (0.5 mg/kg, ip), respectively, while groups III to V received orally 50, 100, and 200 and 400 mg/kg doses of the essential oil of F. vulgare, respectively. The mice were then individually placed in animal anxiety models: elevated plus maze (EPM), staircase test (SCT) and open field test (OFT) and evaluated for various parameters.ResultsIn EPM test, 100 and 200 mg/kg doses of the essential oil significantly increased percent number of entries and time spent in open arms compared to control. In SCT these doses also reduced rearing significantly compared to controls, while only the 200 mg/kg dose significantly increased number of squares crossed at the center in the OFT test.ConclusionThe essential oil of F. vulgare was found to exhibit a promising anxiolytic activity.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Mesfin et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.