Antidepressant-like effects of essential oil and asarone, a major essential oil component from the rhizome ofAcorus tatarinowii

• DOI: 10.3109/13880209.2012.751616
• Publication Date: 2013-01-31T07:16:25Z
• Authors: Ping Han; Ting Han; Wei Peng; Xiao-Ru Wang
• Keywords: Tail suspension test; Zingiberaceae; Phytochemical

Context: Depression is one of the most common psychiatric diseases. Acorus tatarinowii Schott (Araceae) has shown many bioactivities in treatment senile dementia and epilepsy. However, there no report on antidepressant-like effects essential oil (EO) its major components animals under standardized experimental procedures.Objective: This study was designed to investigate antidepressant properties EO asarones from rhizomes A. tatarinowii.Materials methods: Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS) used determine composition EO. The forced swimming test (FST), tail suspension (TST) open-field (OFT) were evaluate asarones. [30, 60, 120 or 240 mg/kg, per os (p.o.)], (α-asarone β-asarone) [5, 10 20 intraperitoneal (i.p.)] imipramine (15 i.p.) administered at 1 h, 30 min before test, respectively.Results: From results GC/MS, it found that main α-asarone (9.18%) β-asarone (68.9%). FST TST, immobility time can be reduced 166 ± 17 s (p < 0.01) 146 15 0.05) by dose mg/kg. Moreover, significant with 178 159 FST, 147 12 134 TST β-Asarone also displayed an 179 18 142 14 change ambulation observed OFT.Conclusion: obtained indicate considered as a new therapeutic agent for curing depression.