study of sedative and anxiolytic effects of polar, semi-polar and non-polar fractions of artemisia aucheri extract compared with diazepam in rats

Abstract    Artemisia Aucheri is a medicinal plant which has powerful sedative and anxiolytic effects. Also there are a lot of anti-oxidant agents in its extract. The purpose of this research is studying the sedative and anxiolytic effects of polar, semi-polar and non-polar fractions, extracted from Artemisia Aucheri in comparison with diazepam in the animal model of Rat. For this purpose, polar, semi-polar and non-polar fractions were extracted from Artemisia Aucheri, based on the polarity of solvent. The injection of the obtained fractions and other medications were made to different groups of female wistar rats which the same age and weight. Group was injected with 100mg/kg of Polar fraction extract, the second group with 100mg/kg of Semi-polar extract, the third group, with 100 mg/kg of non-polar extract of Artemisia Aucheri, the fourth group with 2 mg/kg of Diazepam, the fifth group with the same volume of Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) for studying the effect of solvent. The method of injection was Intra peritoneal (IP) form. The sixth group was the control group and did not receive any medications. Thirty minutes after injections, Ketamin 100 mg/kg was injected intraperitoneally in all 6 groups. Then induction and sleeping time was measured in seconds. Statistical results showed a meaningful decrease of anesthetic induction time and increase of sleeping time of Ketamin-induced anesthesia, after IP injection of the Polar fraction of  Artemisia Aucheri (P