Evaluation of the antidepressant potential of the Hydroalcoholic extract of Glandularia Cabrerae (Moldenke) Botta in a Murine model

Abstract

Depression is within the five most prevalent diseases in the world, affecting approximately 322 million people (Fusar-Poli L et al. 2019). Previous studies have shown that 80-90% of patients with major depressive disorder also have anxiety symptoms. Comorbidity between anxiety and depression predicts poor outcomes with a higher percentage of treatment resistance (Coplan et al. 2015). There is a need for new investigations to develop novel drugsand strategies of treatments, which has led to alternative approaches within ethnomedicine, being our goal to study the effect of Glandularia Cabrerae (GC), native plant of Argentina; on the anxiety and depression behavior in a murine model. Therefore, the present study has as a hypothesis that the extract of this plant induces antidepressant predictive effect since it shares gender with Glandularia dissecta, popularly used in  nervous system conditions .

Male albino Swiss-N: NIH mice, were treated with a hydroalcoholic extract of GC (macerated 5% w/v ethanol/water 1: 1) which was lyophilized and subsequently resuspected with saline solution. A set of 8 controls treated with saline solution was used, 8 animals treated with a dose of 55 mg/kg body weight and 8 with a dose of 175 mg/kg. The treatment for 28 days was carried out orally. An open field test (OFT) was performed to study depressive behavior. Setting basal, pre-treatment and post-treatment behavior. On the 28th day a Plus Maze test (PMT) was performed to assess anxiety. The OFT results were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA and PMT by MANOVA.

The results show that there are no significant differences in the OFT, while the animals treated with both doses of the macerate exhibit a significant increase with respect to control group in the PMT, both in the %time in open arms (p = 0.00; F = 4.37; df = 18) as in the % entrance to open arms (p = 0.01 f = 4.37 df = 18). Although macerated has no antidepressant-like effect, it induces an anxiolytic effect that could contribute to the efficacy of depression treatment.