Abstract
Pain is defined as unpleasant feeling essential for body’s defense system. It acts as a warning signal against disturbances in the body. Conventional antinociceptives are expensive and have many side effects. Continued use of these drugs may lead to tolerance and resistance. Medicinal plants have been used to relieve pain and form a better alternative. Herbal antinociceptives are affordable and have arguably fewer side effects. Caesalpinia volkensii (Harms) has pharmacological activities that include antimicrobial, immune modulatory properties and antimalarial. It is used locally by people in Embu County as analgesics. This study was designed to bioscreen the acetone leaf extracts of C. volkensii (Harms) for antinociceptive effects in mice.. The plant parts were collected from Mbeere north sub-county, Embu County, Kenya. The samples were prepared and extraction of the active compounds carried out using acetone. Swiss albino mice were divided into five groups of five mice each: Normal, negative, reference and experimental group. Pain was induced experimentally using formalin and acetic acid. The experimental groups were treated with 50 and 100 mg/kg dose ranges of the plant extract. Mice were injected intraperitoneally with doses of the herbs, diclofenac and the vehicle. Thirty minutes later the animals were injected with 0.01ml of 2.5 % formalin in the sub planter region of the left hind paw and the other set with 0.4ml of 5% acetic acid. The total time spent lifting; biting, licking the paw and writhing were counted and scored. The acetone leaves extracts tested at different dose levels lowered paw licking time in a dose dependant manner, Further, the phytochemical screening results showed that the acetone leaves extracts of C. volkensii (Harms) have phytochemicals associated with antinociceptive activities. The study has established that the acetone leaves extract of C.volkensii (Harms) is effective in management of pain.
Highlights
Pain is an unpleasant sensory affliction and emotional experience usually associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage [1]
The antinociceptive effectiveness of the two extracts dose levels was not significantly different from each other and was comparable to the Diclofenac which reduced the formalin induced pain by 98.02% .This shows that the plant extracts was as effective as the reference drug (p> 0.05; Table 1; Figure 1)
The administration of 100 mg/kg body weight acetone leaf extracts of C.volkensii did not reduce the number of writhings (-80.23 %) highly concentrated extract molecules took longer to be absorbed across the membranes via filtration so that lower concentration of the extract in the 50 mg/kg body weight dose level was absorbed faster than 100 mg/kg body weight and caused antinociceptive activity in mice (Table 2; Figure 2)
Summary
Pain is an unpleasant sensory affliction and emotional experience usually associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage [1]. It is not any disease, but it is manifested in certain disease or pathological conditions in the organism body. The management of pain is a daily challenge in modern medicine despite the currently available wide range of analgesics. Medicinal plants are believed to be an important source of new chemical substances with potential therapeutic effects against pain [6,7]. Alternative medicines are thought to posses many safe and effective phytocompounds useful in treating various disorders including pain [10]
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