Pharmacognosy, Phytochemistry & Natural Products

Biography

Biography: Sonali Mohanty

Abstract

Turnera diffusa commonly known as Damiana has a long history of use in traditional herbal medicine throughout the world. The medicinal part is its leaves, which are harvested during the flowering season. Damiana is known to act as an aphrodisiac, antianxiety, cough-suppressant, analgesic etc.The present study is done to evaluate the anticonvulsant activity of Turnera diffusa in albino mice.For the same purpose a total of 60 animals were divided into 10 groups of 6 each. Among which 5 groups were subjected to Maximal Electroshock Seizure(MES) model and other 5 groups to Pentylenetetrazole(PTZ) induced seizure model. Normal Saline was given as control. Sodium valproate 50mg/kg body weight per orally was used as standard. Aqueous extract of T. diffusa was used in three doses 50, 75, 100 mg/kg body weight per orally. In MES model there was a marked reduction in duration of all the parameters (tonic hind limb flexion, tonic hind limb extension, clonus and postictal depression) and was significant when compared with control(p<0.001) and was comparable with standard.In PTZ induced seizures prolongation of duration of onset of seizures and decrease in duration of seizures were observed. When compared to control, results were significant (p<0.001) and were comparable with standard .This study showed that T.diffusa has anticonvulsant activity.Further research is required to explore the utility of damiana for treatment of epilepsy.