Anxiolytic and antidepressant effects of tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus L.) hydro-alcoholic extract in male rats exposed to chronic restraint stress

Khosravi, Hajar; Rahnema, Mehdi; Asle-Rousta, Masoumeh

doi:10.21859/acadpub.nbr.4.1.1

Anxiolytic and antidepressant effects of tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus L.) hydro-alcoholic extract in male rats exposed to chronic restraint stress

Authors

Hajar Khosravi

Mehdi Rahnema

Masoumeh Asle-Rousta

Islamic Azad University, Zanjan Branch

https://doi.org/10.21859/acadpub.nbr.4.1.1

Abstract

Tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus L.) has antioxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory proper-ties. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of tarragon hydro-alcoholic extract on anxiety and depression in male rats exposed to chronic restraint stress. Forty eight male rats were randomly divided into six groups including 1) control, 2) stress, 3) tarragon 100, 4) tarragon 500, 5) stress-tarragon 100 and 6) stress-tarragon 500. Groups 2, 5, and 6 were placed in restrainer for 21 consecutive days, 6 hours a day. Groups 3, 4, 5, and 6 were gavaged with tarragon extract of different do-ses (100 and 500mg/kg). At the end of this 21-day period, anxiety and depression were evaluated by elevated plus maze and forced swimming test. Data analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA, p<0.05 being considered significant. The pe-rcentages of open arm entry and time spent in open arm increased significantly in tarragon-stress groups compared with st-ress group (p<0.05). Tarragon extract decreased significantly the immobility time in rats exposed to stress in forced swim-ming test (p<0.01). The results suggested that hydro-alcoholic extract of Artemisia dracunculus L. reduced the anxiety and depression in rats exposed to chronic immobilization stress, probably due to its anti-oxidant compounds

Keywords

elevated plus maze

forced swimming test

antioxidant

20.1001.1.24236330.1396.4.1.1.2

Aglarova, A.M., Zilfikarov, I.N. and Severtseva, O.V. 2008. Biological characteristics and useful properties of tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus L.). – Pharm. Chem. J. 42: 81-86.
Beck, A.T. and Alford, B.A. 2009. Depression: causes and tr-eatment. – University of Pennsylvania Press, 406 pp.
Berton, O. and Nestler, E.J. 2006. New approaches to anti-depressant drug discovery: beyond monoamines. – Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 7: 137-151.
Bhandari, S.S. and Kabra, M.P. 2014. To evaluate anti-an-xiety activity of thymol. – J.A.D. 3: 136-140.
Bouayed, J., Rammal, H. and Soulimani, R. 2009. Oxid-ative stress and anxiety: relationship and cellular pathways. – Oxid. Med. Cell Longev. 2: 63-67.
Bremner, J.D., Innis, R.B., Southwick, S.M., Staib, L., Zo-ghbi, S. and Charney, D.S. 2014. Decreased benz-odiazepine receptor binding in prefrontal cortex in comb-atrelated posttraumatic stress disorder. – Am. J. Psychi-atry 157: 1120-1126.
Czéh, B., Varga, Z.K.K., Henningsen, K., Kovács, G.L., Miseta, A. and Wiborg, O. 2015. Chronic stress reduces the number of GABAergic interneurons in the adult rat hippocampus, dorsal‐ventral and region‐specific differ-ences. – Hippocampus 25: 393-405.
Deng, X.Y., Li, H.Y., Chen, J.J., Li, R.P., Qu, R., Fu, Q. and Ma, S.P. 2015. Thymol produces an antidepressant-like effect in a chronic unpredictable mild stress model of depression in mice. – Behav. Brain Res. 291: 12-19.
Ding, J., Huang, C., Peng, Z., Xie, Y., Deng, S., Nie, Y.Z. and Li, F. 2014. Electrophysiological characterization of methyleugenol: a novel agonist of GABA (A) receptors. – Neurosci. 5: 803-811.
Duman, R.S. 2004. Neural plasticity: consequences of stre-ss and actions of antidepressant treatment. – Dialogues Clin. Neurosci. 6: 157-169.
Ghorbani Yekta, B., Nasehi, M., Khakpour, S., Zarrindast, M. and Shafieekhan, Y. 2013. The effects of nicotine injection in rat nucleus accumbens on anxiety. – Tehran Univ. Med. J. 71: 71-78
Hanrahan, J.R., Chebib, M. and Johnston, G.A. 2011. Fl-avonoid modulation of GABAA receptors. – Br. J. Ph-armacol. 163: 234-245.
Jafari, F., Khosravi, M., Najafi Abedi, A., Hedayat, S. and Ranjbaran, M. 2013. Assessment of the antidepressant effect of Rosa canina L. petal extracts in mice by forced swimming stress model. – Iran J.P.P. 17: 231-239.
Joo, Y., Choi, K.M., Lee, Y.H., Kim, G., Lee, D.H., Roh, G.S. and Kim, H.J. 2009. Chronic immobilization stress induces anxiety-and depression-like behaviors and decr-eases transthyretin in the mouse cortex. – Neurosci. Let. 461: 121-125.
Kandel, E.R., Schwartz, J.H. and Jessell, T.M. 2000. Prin-ciples of neural science. – McGraw-Hill New York, 1414 pp.
Khanzode, S.D., Dakhale, G.N., Khanzode, S.S., Saoji, A. and Palasodkar, R. 2003. Oxidative damage and major depression: the potential antioxidant action of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. – Redox Rep. 8: 365-370.
Kim, J. and Gorman, J. 2005. The psychobiology of anxi-ety. – Clin. Neurosci. Res. 4: 335-347.
Kim, Y.K., Na, K.S., Myint, A.M. and Leonard, B.E. 2016. The role of pro-inflammatory cytokines in neuroinfla-mmation, neurogenesis and the neuroendocrine system in major depression. – Biol. Psychiatry 64: 277-284.
Lakshminarasimhan, H. and Chattarji, S. 2012. Stress leads to contrasting effects on the levels of brain derived neurotrophic factor in the hippocampus and amygdala. – PLoS One 7: e30481.
Lima, N.G., De Sousa, D.P., Pimenta, F.C.F., Alves, M.F., De Souza, F.S., Macedo, R.O. and de Almeida, R.N. 2013. Anxiolytic-like activity and GC–MS analysis of (R)-(+)-limonene fragrance, a natural compound found in foods and plants. – Pharmacol. Biochem. Behav. 103: 450-454.
MacDonald, T.M. 1997. Treatment of depression: prescription for success? – Primary Care Psychiatry 3: 7-10.
MacDowell, K.S., Caso, J.R., Martín-Hernández, D., Madrigal, J.L., Leza, J.C. and García-Bueno, B. 2015. Paliperidone prevents brain Toll-like receptor 4 pathway activation and neuroinflammation in rat models of acute and chronic restraint stress. – Int. J. Neuropsychophar-macol. 18: 1-11.
Maes, M., De Vos, N., Pioli, R., Demedts, P., Wauters, A., Neels, H. and Christophe, A. 2000. Lower serum vitamin E concentrations in major depression: another marker of lowered antioxidant defenses in that illness. – J. Affect. Disord. 58: 241-246.
Maham, M., Moslemzadeh, H. and Jalilzadeh-Amin, G. 2014. Antinociceptive effect of the essential oil of tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus). – Pharm. Boil. 52: 208-212.
Matys, T., Pawlak, R., Matys, E., Pavlides, C., McEwen, B.S. and Strickland, S. 2004. Tissue plasminogen activator promotes the effects of corticotropin-releasing factor on the amygdala and anxiety-like behavior. – Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 101: 16345-16350.
McEwen, B.S. 2006. Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators: central role of the brain. – Dialogues Clin. Neurosci. 8: 367-381.
Melo, F.H.C., Venâncio, E.T., De Sousa, D.P., De França Fonteles, M.M., De Vasconcelos, S.M.M., Viana, G.S.B. and De Sousa, F.C.F. 2010. Anxiolytic‐like effect of Carvacrol (5‐isopropyl‐2‐methylphenol) in mice: involve-ement with GABAergic transmission. – Fundam. Clin. Pharmacol. 24: 437-443.
Melo, F.H.C., Moura, B.A., de Sousa, D.P., de Vasconcelos, S.M.M., Macedo, D.S., Fonteles, M.M.D.F. and de Sousa, F.C.F. 2011. Antidepressant‐like effect of carvacrol (5‐Isopropyl‐2‐methylphenol) in mice: involvement of dopaminergic system. – Fundam. Clin. Pharmacol. 25: 362-367.
Michel, T.M., Frangou, S., Thiemeyer, D., Camara, S., Jecel, J., Nara, K. and Riederer, P. 2007. Evidence for oxidative stress in the frontal cortex in patients with recu-rrent depressive disorder a postmortem study. – Psyc-hiatry Res. 151: 145-150.
Nakhaei, M., Ramezani, M., Khajeh Karamoddin, M. and Malekzadeh, F. 2006. In vitro anti-helicobacter pylori activity of cumin (Cuminum cyminum L.) and tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus L.) extracts. – I.J.B.M.S. 3: 193-200.
Ng, F., Berk, M., Dean, O. and Bush, A.I. 2008. Oxidative stress in psychiatric disorders: evidence base and therap-eutic implications. – Int. J. Neuropsychopharmac. 11: 851-876.
Norte, M.C.B., Cosentino, R.M. and Lazarini, C.A. 2005. Effects of methyl-eugenol administration on behavioral models related to depression and anxiety, in rats. – Phyt-omed. 12: 294-298.
Obolskiy, D., Pischel, I., Feistel, B., Glotov, N. and Heinrich, M. 2011. Artemisia dracunculus L. (tarragon): a critical review of its traditional use, chemical compos-ition, pharmacology, and safety. – J. Agric. Food Chem. 59: 11367-11384.
Patil, P.O., Bari, S.B., Firke, S.D., Deshmukh, P.K., Donda, S.T. and Patil, D.A. 2013. A comprehensive review on synthesis and designing aspects of coumarin derivatives as monoamine oxidase inhibitors for depression and Alzheimer’s disease. – Bioorg. Med. Chem. 21: 2434-2450.
Rammal, H., Bouayed, J., Younos, C. and Soulimani, R. 2008. Evidence that oxidative stress is linked to anxiety-related behavior in mice. – Brain Behave. Immune. 22: 1156-1159.
Ribnicky, D. M., Kuhn, P., Poulev, A., Logendra, S., Zuberi, A., Cefalu, W.T. and Raskin, I. 2009. Improved absorption and bioactivity of active compounds from an anti-diabetic extract of Artemisia dracunculus L. – Int. J. Pharm. 370: 87-92.
Roughani, M., Baluchnejhadmojarad, T. and Roughani, D.F. 2004. The effect of oral administration of Artemisia dracunculus on blood glucose and lipid profile in male diabetic rats. – I.J.E.M. 6: 235-239.
Saei, A. 1999. Effects of aqueous tarragon, Artemisia dracunculus, extract on lipid and coagulator parameters in rats. – Biomed. Let. 59: 137-141.
Selye, H. 2013. Stress in health and disease. – Butterworth-Heinemann, 1256 pp.
Shamsudinov, S.N. 1994. Physiological efficacy of tarragon in various experimental conditions. – Doctoral disserta-tion, Ph.D. thesis, Dushanbe.
Takeda, H., Tsuji, M., Inazu, M., Egashira, T. and Matsumiya, T. 2002. Rosmarinic acid and caffeic acid produce antidepressive-like effect in the forced swimmi-ng test in mice. – Eur. J. Pharmacol. 449: 261-267.
Vyas, A., Mitra, R., Rao, B.S. and Chattarji, S. 2002. Chronic stress induces contrasting patterns of dendritic remodeling in hippocampal and amygdaloid neurons. – J. Neurosci. 22: 6810-6818.
Wasowski, C. 2012. Flavonoids as GABA. – J. Exp. Phar-macol. 4: 9-24.