Abstract
Chemical investigation of the crude methanol/methylene chloride (1:1) extract of the seeds of Harungana madagascariensis resulted in the isolation of two known compounds namely n-dotriacontane and friedelan-3-one. The structures of the isolated compounds were determined on the basis of 1D NMR spectroscopy and comparison with literature data. The crude extract and the two compounds were evaluated for their anticonvulsant effects on pentylenetetrazole or picrotoxin induced convulsions in mice. All the tested treatments showed anticonvulsant effects on experimental models of epileptic seizures chemically induced in mice. Friedelan-3-one and the crude extract showed up to 83% protection of animals against convulsions while n-dotriacontane produced a maximum of 33% protection. Key words: Harungana madagariensis extracts, friedelan-3-one, n-dotriacontane, anticonvulsant activity.  
Highlights
Plants are an important source of novel molecules for the development of new antiepileptic agents to solve the problems of toxicity, side effects, and ineffectiveness in the control of epilepsy (Hui-Ling et al, 2014)
The1H NMR of AHM1 showed two signals; a triplet at about 0.88 ppm attributed to the six methyl protons (H-1 and H-32) and a broad signal at about 1.26 ppm attributed to the methylene protons (H-2 to H-31)
At the dose of 20 mg/kg, anticonvulsant effects of the MeOH/CH2Cl2crude extract (AHM) and AHM2 each considerably inhibited the action of PTZ and PCT, so much so that only 1/6 of the animals exhibited tonic-clonic convulsions with a high latency suggesting that AHM and especially AHM2 might provide 100% like the reference drug clonazepam (1 and 0.1 mg/kg for PTZ and PCT respectively) if dose was increased to about 25 mg/kg
Summary
Plants are an important source of novel molecules for the development of new antiepileptic agents to solve the problems of toxicity, side effects, and ineffectiveness in the control of epilepsy (Hui-Ling et al, 2014). Though there is limited literature on pure components in herbal medicines that have been reported to treat neurological disorders, many kinds of herbs have been used to treat epilepsy. This affects up to 50 million people (Wagner, 2016) of all age groups, sex and social class worldwide (Nirupam et al, 2012) with 2 million new cases every year including 75% from low- and medium-income countries (LMICs) (Wagner, 2016).
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