Valeriana officinalis root extract suppresses physical stress by electric shock and psychological stress by nociceptive stimulation-evoked responses by decreasing the ratio of monoamine neurotransmitters to their metabolites

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Youn-Gil Kwak¹  In Koo Hwang²  Dae Young Yoo²  Yeo Sung Yoon²  Sung Min Nam²  Jong Whi Kim²  Woosuk Kim²  Hyo Young Jung²  Jung Hoon Choi³ 

[1] Central Research Center, Natural F&P Co. Ltd, 363-883, Cheongwon, South Korea;Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, College of Veterinary Medicine, and Research Institute for Veterinary Science, Seoul National University, 151-742, Seoul, South Korea;Department of Anatomy, College of Veterinary Medicine, Kangwon National University, 200-701, Chuncheon, South Korea;

关键词: Valeriana officinalis;    Physical stress;    Psychological stress;    Serotonin;    Norepinephrine;    Hippocampus;    Amygdala;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-476

 received in 2014-04-11, accepted in 2014-09-22,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn this study, we investigate the effects of valerian root extracts (VE) on physical and psychological stress responses by utilizing a communication box.MethodsEight-week-old ICR mice received oral administration of VE (100 mg/kg/0.5 ml) or equal volume of distilled water in every day for 3 weeks prior to being subjected to physical or psychological stress for 3 days, which are induced by communication box developed for physical electric shock and psychological stress by nociceptive stimulation-evoked responses. The stress condition was assessed by forced swimming test and serum corticosterone levels. In addition, norepinephrine (NE), serotonin (5-HT), and their metabolites such as 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylethyleneglycol sulfate (MHPG-SO4) and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) were measured in the hippocampus and amygdala at 1 h after final stress condition, respectively.ResultsImmobility time and corticosterone levels were significantly increased in both the physical and psychological stress groups compared to the control group. The administration of VE significantly reduced these parameters in both the physical and psychological stress groups. In addition, compared to the control group, physical and psychological stress groups showed significantly increased levels of MHPG-SO4 and 5-HIAA in the hippocampus and amygdala, respectively. The administration of VE significantly suppressed the increase of MHPG-SO4 and 5-HIAA in the two stress groups.ConclusionThese results suggest that VE can suppress physical and psychological stress responses by modulating the changes in 5-HT and NE turnover in the hippocampus and amygdala.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Jung et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 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.