Antidepressant-Like Effect of Lippia sidoides CHAM (Verbenaceae) Essential Oil and Its Major Compound Thymol in Mice.

Rafaelly Siqueira,Feliphy Custódio,Carla Melo,Maria Linhares,Nayara Cardoso,Francisco Catunda Júnior,Tiago Melo,Márcia Lima,Michele Parente,Aristides Nascimento

doi:10.3390/scipharm86030027

Abstract

Depression is a common disease affecting more than 300 million people worldwide. Since Lippia sidoides has shown central nervous system effects in previous works, we aimed to investigate the effect of L. sidoides essential oil and its major compound, thymol on a corticosterone-induced depression model in mice. Male mice (20⁻25 g) received corticosterone (20 mg/kg, subcutaneously), once a day for 22 days. From the 16th day on, mice were grouped to receive either corticosterone or L. sidoides essential oil (100 and 200 mg/kg), or thymol (25 and 50 mg/kg) or fluoxetine (35 mg/kg) by gavage. The forced swimming test, tail suspension, open field, elevated plus maze and sucrose preference tests were performed from the 19th to 22nd day. Data were analyzed by ANOVA followed by the Student-Newman-Keuls as a post hoc test and the results were considered significant when p < 0.05. It was shown that L. sidoides essential oil, thymol and fluoxetine decreased the immobility time in the tail suspension and forced swimming tests and none of these altered locomotor activity in the open field test. However, the drugs increased the amount of grooming. In the elevated plus maze, all drugs increased the number of entries and the time of permanence in the open arms. In the sucrose preference test, the L. sidoides essential oil, thymol and fluoxetine reversed anhedonia. These results suggest that the thymol and L. sidoides essential oil have an antidepressant-like effect, similar to fluoxetine. However, future studies should be encouraged to enhance understanding of the effects of essential oil and thymol for the treatment of depression.

Highlights

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is the leading cause of mental illness and disability affecting more than 300 million people worldwide with an increase of more than18% between 2005 and 2015 [1].Sci
11.49, n = 10) decreased the immobility time compared to CORT (135.6 ± 13.45, n = 10) (Figure 3b)
L. sidoides essential oil (LSEO) at both doses, 100 mg/kg (40.0 ± 10.31, n = 10) and 200 mg/kg (42.73 ± 9 57, n = 10), decreased the immobility time compared to CORT (91.83 ± 4.73, n = 10) (Figure 4a)

Summary

Introduction

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is the leading cause of mental illness and disability affecting more than 300 million people worldwide with an increase of more than18% between 2005 and 2015 [1].Sci. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is the leading cause of mental illness and disability affecting more than 300 million people worldwide with an increase of more than. Depression is a heterogeneous multifactorial disease, with an unclear etiology and pathophysiology [2]. The main symptoms of depression are sad mood, self-deprecation, lack of concentration, energy and sleep deficits, psychosomatic disorders, anhedonia and suicidal thoughts [3,4]. The pathophysiology of depression remains poorly understood and is determined by genetic, epigenetic and physiological factors [3,4,5]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion