In vivo sedative and muscle relaxants activity of Diospyros lotus L

摘要

Objective: To evaluate the sedative effect of Diospyros lotus L(D. lotus) extract in mice using the open field and Rota rod tests.Methods: For the sedative and muscle relaxants activities of extract/fractions of the plant, invivo open field and phenobarbitone-induced sleeping time were used, while the Roda rod test was employed in animals for the assessment of muscle relaxant activity.Results: Results from this investigation revealed that the extracts of D. lotus have exhibited significant sedative effect in mice(45.98%) at 100 mg/kg i.p. When the extract was partitioned with different solvents, the n-hexane fraction was inactive whereas the chloroform fraction was the most active with 82.67% sedative effect at 50 and 100 mg/kg i.p. On the other hand,the ethyl acetate and n-butanol fractions displayed significant sedative effects(55.65% and40.87%, respectively) at 100 mg/kg i.p. Among the tested extract/fractions, only chloroform and ethyl acetate fractions showed significant(P 0.05) muscle relaxant activity in the Rota rod test.Conclusions: In short, our study provided scientific background to the traditional uses of D.lotus as sedative.