FTOX005 Anticonvulsant effects of erythrinian alkaloids from Erythrina mulungu: preliminary evaluation on a chronic animal model basis.

Abstract

Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) is responsible for 40% of diagnosed cases of epilepsy. The search of new antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) is of relevance to understanding of this neurological disorder and also for a better treatment of patients. The plant E. mulungu Mart. ex Benth. (Leguminosae-Papilionaceae) has been used in the folk medicine and also in industrial phytoterapical preparations due to its sedative, anticonvulsant, hypnotic and anxiolytic properties. Indeed, recent reports have pointed to a marked anticonvulsant effects of E. mulungu flower and leaf hidroalcoolic extract in different acute animal models of epilepsy. Those anticonvulsant effects have been attributed to (+)-erythravine, (+)-11-?-hidroxi-erythravine and/or erysothrine alkaloids isolated from the plant. However, no experimental approach has been used to evaluate the anticonvulsant effects of these alkaloids in a chronic animal model of epilepsy.