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Centella asiatica attenuates the neurobehavioral, neurochemical and histological changes in transient focal middle cerebral artery occlusion rats

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Abstract

Centella asiatica has been used as psychoactive and antioxidant herbal medicine since ancient time. The present study was design to evaluate the preventive role of ethanolic extract of C. asiatica in middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in rats. Male Wistar rats were gavaged orally with C. asiatica extract (100, 200 and 300 mg/kg body weight once daily) for 21 days and thereafter subjected to right MCAO for 2 h followed by 22-h reperfusion. Brain injury was evaluated by 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride and hematoxylin and eosin staining. Behavioural outcomes as neurological deficit, rota rod test, and grip strength were assessed. In addition, lipid peroxidation, enzymatic and non enzymatic antioxidants were analyzed to assess the oxidative stress. Our results revealed that C. asiatica administration greatly improved neurobehavioral activity and diminished infarction volume along with the restored histological morphology of brain in MCAO rats. Furthermore, supplementation with this extract to MCAO group has reduced the level of thiobarbituric acid reactive species, restored glutathione content and augmented the activities of antioxidant enzymes—catalase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, glutathione-S-transferase and superoxide dismutase in a dose-dependent manner in ischemic rats. The remarkable antioxidant activity of C. asiatica may be attributed to its bioactive triterpenes, asiatic acid, asiaticoside, madecassic acid and madecosside and may be translated to clinical level for prevention of ischemic stroke.

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Acknowledgments

The author (R. Tabassum) is highly thankful to UGC, Govt. of India for financial help.

Conflict of interest

Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest involved with this work.

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Author notes

  1. Fakhrul Islam

    Present address: Neuroscience and Toxicology Unit, Faculty of Pharmacy, Jazan University, Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

  2. Pallavi Shrivastava

    Present address: Department Neurology, Robert Wood Johanson Medical School, UMDNJ, New Jersey, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neurotoxicology Laboratory, Department of Medical Elementology and Toxicology (DST-FIST and UGC-SAP-BSR funded department), Jamia Hamdard (Hamdard University), Hamdard Nagar, New Delhi, 110062, India

    Rizwana Tabassum, Kumar Vaibhav, Pallavi Shrivastava, Andleeb Khan, Md. Ejaz Ahmed, Hayate Javed, M. Saeed Siddiqui & Fakhrul Islam

  2. Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Jamia Hamdard (Hamdard University), Hamdard Nagar, New Delhi, 110062, India

    Farah Islam

  3. Department of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Jamia Hamdard (Hamdard University), Hamdard Nagar, New Delhi, 110062, India

    Sayeed Ahmad

  4. Neuroscience and Toxicology Unit, Faculty of Pharmacy, Jazan University, Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Mohammed M. Safhi

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  1. Rizwana Tabassum
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Correspondence to Fakhrul Islam.

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Tabassum, R., Vaibhav, K., Shrivastava, P. et al. Centella asiatica attenuates the neurobehavioral, neurochemical and histological changes in transient focal middle cerebral artery occlusion rats. Neurol Sci 34, 925–933 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-012-1163-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-012-1163-1

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