The effect of ethanol extract of pegagan (Centella asiatica) on the performance of Wistar rats after restraint stress

Abstract

Hamidi BL, Samigun, Lestari A. 2010. The effect of extract ethanol of pegagan (Centella asiatica) on the performance of Wistar rats after restraint stress. Biofarmasi 8: 11-16. The aim of this research was to investigate the effects of extract ethanol of pegagan (Centella asiatica) after treated with restraint stress by measuring the eight arms radial maze performance of rats. Pre-test and post-test controlled groups design was applied in this research. Male Wistar rats (Rattus novergicus) with the mean age of 8 weeks and the body weight of 150-200 grams which used for sample were divided randomly into 4 groups, each group consisted of 6 rats, i.e. (i) control group (without any treatment), (ii) stress group (it was given by restraint stress for 2 hours/day for each rat), (iii) pegagan group (it was given by 0.3 mg/g BW/day/rat extract ethanol of pegagan), and (iv) pegagan and stress group (it was given by 0.3 mg/g BW/day/rat extract ethanol of pegagan and restraint stress for 2 hours/day for each rat). The treatments were given for 21 days. Within 12 days for each pre-treatment and post-treatment, a test on the eight arm radial maze was conducted on individual rat to observe its performance. The assessment of rat performance in the eight arms radial maze test was conducted based on error type B. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests with SPSS for Windows 16 version were applied to analyze statistically the difference between four groups. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to show the significant performance level difference between four groups of rats with p=0.001, while Mann-Whitney test was used to determine the significant difference between stress group and pegagan group (p=0.001), also stress group and pegagan and stress group (p=0.001). The result of research showed that there was no significant difference between control group and stress group (p=0.051), control group and pegagan group (p=0.143), control group and pegagan and stress group (p=0.143), also pegagan group and pegagan and stress group (p=0.952). It was concluded that extract ethanol of pegagan improved the performances of rats on the eight arms radial maze after treated with restraint stress.