Abstract
Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) leaf aqueous extracts (PLAE) has been reputed to be a type of sleep-aid in China. To investigate the sedative effects and effect pathways of PLAE, rats (n = 31) were employed in two experiments and intragastrically administrated of (1) distilled water, PLAE (500 mg/kg body weight (BW)) and peanut stem aqueous extracts (PSAE, 500 mg/kg BW); (2) 0, 100 or 500 mg/kg BW of PLAE, respectively for at least 14 days. Six relevant neurotransmitters were measured finally. Experiment-1 (n = 16) results showed that the brain Lactate were significantly elevated (p < 0.05) in rat cerebrums after PLAE administrations, compared with Control and PSAE groups. In respect of brain energy system, significant degradations of the brain adenosine triphos- phate (ATP) (p < 0.05) were observed in the brainstems and even the whole brains of rats though PLAE treatments. Moreover, we found that the brain Adenosine monophosphate (AMP) were clearly decreased (p < 0.05) in rat cerebrum and brainstem regions, while the brain Adenosine revealed an increasing propensity (p = 0.076) in the cerebrums of freely behaving rats. After experiment-2 (n = 15), the γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentrations were statistically (p < 0.05) enhanced and the ratios of Glutamate/GABA were simultaneously reduced (p < 0.05) in rat brainstems, no matter which one dose (100 or 500 mg/kg BW) of PLAE were used. Results indicated that PLAE could influence the target neurotransmitters that related to rat circadian rhythms in the specific brain regions, possessing the potentialities as a sedative or sleep-aid for hypnic therapy purposes.
Highlights
Given the high prevalence of insomnia and hypnotics addiction worldwide, herb sedatives have attracted increasing research interests in terms of substituting the drug-addictive hypnotics
Results indicated that PLAE could influence the target neurotransmitters that related to rat circadian rhythms in the specific brain regions, possessing the potentialities as a sedative or sleep-aid for hypnic therapy purposes
Adenosine monophosphate (AMP) can transfer into adenosine triphosphate (ATP) or degraded into Ad [9]
Summary
Given the high prevalence of insomnia and hypnotics addiction worldwide, herb sedatives have attracted increasing research interests in terms of substituting the drug-addictive hypnotics. Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) leaf aqueous extracts (PLAE) have received a long reputation in china as an abirritative remedy to ease various sleep disorders [2], and clinically validated by modernistic medical approaches [3,4]. Many those researches only focus on the clinical effects, and relevant studies on their deep effect mechanisms are still lacking. Our studies carried out two rat experiments which lied in clarifying PLAE effects and pathways in the sleep regulation as well as evaluating their efficacies on spontaneous circadian rhythms of freely behaving rats
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