Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Associated Prof in Physiology (Ph.D), Dept of Physiology, Medicine School, Shahed University
Abstract
The medicinal plant Datura stramonium (D.s) is a rich source of alkaloids which has been introduced as an analgesic herb. Regarding the possible interaction between opioid and muscarinic systems and the key role of opioid receptors in alleviation of pain, we investigated the effect of alcoholic Datura seed extract in acute and chronic pain. In the present study in order to producing acute and chronic pain, hot plate and formalin tests were used. In treatment group 20 min prior to pain scoring the extract was intraperitonealy administered to the animals and the results was compaired with the control group. In our experiments, the extract alleviated the pain dose dependently, and ED50 was equal to 25 and 50 mg/kg in hot plate and formalin tests, respectively. Analysis of the data by student t-test have shown that the acute and chronic pain producing by formalin and hot plate tests were significantly attenuated in animals which treated with DS seed extract. In order to determine the LD50, doses of 500-4000 mg/kg i.p. of the extract were applied to the animals. In this experiment the calculated LD50 was 2500 mg/kg.
In addition, our results show that the DS seed extract has an analgesic effect in both acute and chronic pain which was produced by hot plate and formalin tests. It is likely that, this effect can be attributed to the D.s extract alkaloids which interacted with opioid system. Also, regarding the significant difference between ED50 and LD50, perhaps we can introduce the D.s seed extract as an analgesic medicinal plant.
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