Abstract
Clitoria ternatea is a vigorous, herbaceous perennial legume that belongs to the Fabaceae family. All
parts of the plant are used in the preparations of Ayurvedic drugs. It is an astringent,
an aphrodisiac, a rejuvenator, and a brain tonic. It also has anti-inflammatory, analgesic,
and antipyretic properties. Baidyanath Shankapushpi, which contains extracts of herbs
such as C. ternatea, Bacopa monnieri, Withania somnifera and Asparagus racemosus, is clinically administered for memory improvement, blood purification and to improve
digestion. However, its neuroprotective effect has not been reported so far. In the
present study, the neuroprotective effect of C. ternatea root (CTR) extract on hippocampal CA3 neurons was investigated. Three-month-old albino
mice were divided into four groups. Group I was the normal control, group II was the
saline control, group III was the stress group, and group IV was the stress + CTR-treated
group. Group-III mice were stressed in a wire mesh restrainer for 6 hours/day for
6 weeks. Grou-IV mice were also stressed like group III, but received CTR extract
orally throughout the stress period. After 6 weeks, their brain was removed, and their
hippocampi were dissected and processed for Golgi staining. The hippocampal neurons
were traced using a camera lucida focused at 400x magnification. The Sholl concentric
circle method was used to quantify the dendrites. The results showed a decrease in
the number of dendritic branching points and of dendritic intersections in the stressed
group. On the other hand, there was an increase in the number of dendritic branching
points and of dendritic intersections of hippocampal CA3 neurons in group IV, which
was subjected to restraint stress and was treated with the CTR extract. The results
showed that the oral administration of CTR significantly increased the dendritic branching
points and the dendritic intersections of hippocampal CA3 neurons.
Keywords
restraint stress - dendritic branching points - dendritic intersections - hippocampus
