Antidepressant-like Effects of Elatostema umbellatum and Urtica dioica in Mice Using Forced Swim Test and Tail Suspension Test

Aims: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the antidepressant action of Elatostema umbellatum and Urtica dioica as well as comparison them with conventional antidepressant drugs and to determine the possible mechanism of its antidepressant action using two methods of study.
Study Design: Prospective.
Place and Duration of Study: Department of Anatomy, Medical School, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran.
Methodology: Alcoholic extracts of E. umbellatum and U. dioica were intra-peritoneal administrated in 78 albino mice (each group contains six mice) using two different methods of extraction (Soxhhlet and partitioning extractions) and antidepressant assays. The antidepressant activity was examined to obtain antidepressant-like effect using Forced Swimming Test (FST) and Tail Suspension Test (TST) in mice.
Results: CEUD I and BEUD IIf2 led to reduction of immobility time, as the selected extracts with two doses (50 and 100mg/kg) administered were different compared to the control, in the FST method by 65.55% and 72.87% for 100mg/kg, respectively. However, fraction BEUD IIf2 showed the best result compared to our positive controls. Similar results of increased antidepressant effect, that was, of immobility time depending on the concentration administered, were obtained with the TST method. Also our data showed that there was no significant differences between doses (50 and 100mg/kg) except for HEEU I extract.
Conclusion: The results suggested that the antidepressant action of the butanol extract of U. dioica its fraction (BEUD IIf2) was mediated by an interaction with 5-hydroxytrptamine (5-HT). U. dioica showed a potential source for the isolation of important natural products with antidepressant-like properties. However, further studies are still required.