EVALUATION OF CNS STIMULANT POTENTIAL OF DELONIX REGIA LEAF EXTRACTS

Pharmacology

The leaves of Delonix regia grow alternately on the stem, biparpipinnate with stout petiole. The extraction ability of different solvents for recovering extractable components from leaves followed the order: methanol>ethylacetate>water>n-hexane. The findings of preliminary phytochemical analysis suggest the presence of alkaloids, saponin glycosides, phenolics, terpenoids, sterols, and flavonoids in the leaf of the plant. All the extracts were subjected to in vivo determination of CNS stimulant potential using photoactometer recognizable locomotion test and tail suspension test to evaluate the behavior of the mice. The results reveal that all the extracts except nhexane extracted component was able to increase the locomotion in mice significantly (p<0.05) as evidenced by actophotometer test. The ethanolic extract exhibited better CNS stimulation compared to the standard drug caffeine at a dose of 200 mg/kg per oral. From the results that immobilization time of the ethanolic extract was comparable at both the evaluated doses was comparable to that of caffeine while the ethylacetate and aqueous extracts were able to reduce the immobility time by a lower margin compared to the control group. The n-hexane extract was unable to reduce the immobilization time in mice. Diazepam was used as the negative control to monitor immobility and lack of locomotor response while caffeine was used as the reference drug to compare the CNS stimulant potential

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.