DOSE-DEPENDENT ANTI-DEPRESSANT EFFECT OF CITRUS PARADISI IN REHABILITATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS

Abstract

With advancement in the modern world, psychological issues, including anxiety and depression has become the leading cause of mental illness. Herbal products have been explored to observe their effects in helping such conditions and citrus fruits are found to be among these helping tools. To study this, current research was designed to explore the antidepressant effects of Citrus paradisi in various doses on rodents. Swiss Albino mice were used and fresh extract of Citrus paradisi was prepared. Imipramine was used as the standard drug. Ethical approval was taken from the Board of Advanced Studies, University of Karachi. The animals were divided into controlled, standard and test groups. All the animals were recruited from the animal house of University of Karachi. Forced Swimming Test was used to analyses the efficacy. It is a standard test, which is commonly used to evaluate the behavioral response in animals using a cylinder at room temperature. After the completion of dosing and monitoring the animals for 30 days, it was observed that marked improvement in the test animal’s behavior with significant p-values indicating that the extract has improved the animal’s psychological response towards the external stress and animals showed noteworthy improvement in the mobile phase as compared to the immobile phase. It can be concluded from the experimental results that protocol established in this study can be used as an alternative for patients suffering with depression as an herbal option, keeping in mind the other co morbidities of patient and drug interactions of Citrus paradisi.