Antagonistic Activities of Several Medicinal Plants on Serotonin-Mediated Actions

수종생약의 향 세로토닌작용

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) has been known to have peripheral actions as well as central actions. Recently physiological roles of 5-HT as a central neurotransmitter have been studied in detail and this is a subject of the present study. Plausible central actions mediated by 5-HT receptor seem to be a control of appetite, bring about psychiatric disorders such as anxiety or dementia, and migraine headache. In this study, thirty-five medicinal plants were tested for their antagonistic activities to 5-HT mediated actions. Through the preliminary screening, methanol extracts of three medicinal plants (Saussureae Radix, Sanguisorbae Radix and Xanthii Fructus) were shown to possess relatively specific antagonistic activities to 5-HT mediated ileal contraction over acetylcholine. To luther investigate the central antagonistic activities of the selected plant in vivo, m-chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) which is known to be a 5-H $T_{1c}$ receptor agonist was injected to mouse to induce an anxious and/or hypolocomotion states, and also social interaction test, which was based on the method described by File (S.E. File, 1980), was performed to see whether ethylacetate fraction of Sanguisorbae Radix methanol extract possessed a specific anxiolytic activity.y.