PYCNOGENOL AND TALBINAH CAN AMELIORATE THE ANTIDEPRESSANT EFFECT OF DESVENLAFAXINE IN DEPRESSION-LIKE BEHAVIOR IN MICE

Eman Zakareya Abdelaziz*

ABSTRACT

This work was designed to investigate the possible antidepressant effects of pycnogenol and talbinah as monotherapy or in combination with desvenlafaxine (DV) in the socially isolated male mice for 4 weeks before the experiment to induce depression model. We used 70 mice divided into 7 groups (10 mice per each).Group I: Normal control group that receive only distilled water, Group II: the diseased control group, Group III: pycnogenol (PYC), Group IV: talbinah, Group V: DV (10 mg/kg, p.o.), Group VI: PYC + DV, Group VII: talbinah + DV. Forced swimming test (FST), tail suspension test (TST), and water finding test were carried out at the end of the 4 weeks of treatment. Social isolation induced depressive-like behaviors as observed by increased immobility time in the FST and TST. Also, it induced decreased learning performance as observed by increased water finding test. The administration of DV, talbinah and pycnogenol alone was able to reverse the increases in the immobility time and water finding test. The combination of pycnogenol / or talbinah and DV potentiated the observed effects of DV. These results suggest that augmentation therapy with the addition of a source of tryptophan as talbinah or an antioxidant drugs as PYC may be an important pharmacological approach for the treatment of depression.

Keywords: talbinah, barley, pycnogenol, desvenlafaxine and depression.