Mucuna pruriens (L.) DC - A novel drug for learning and memory retrieval

Author: M. N. Poornachandra ¹, Salma Khanam ¹, B. G. Shivananda ¹, T. N. Shivananda ^2* and R. Dris ³

Received 19 April 2005, accepted 22 August 2005.

Abstract

Abstract Powdered seeds (drug) of M. pruriens are known to possess many medicinal properties and cure many ailments such as nervous disorders, diarrhea, Parkinson’s disease etc. In the present study the drug has been evaluated for heuristic processes in rats. The drug was administered to Wistar male rats weighing approximately 150–200 grams at one gram per kilogram body weight. The rats were classified into 3 groups to evaluate the impact of drug on learning and memory retrieval processes. Group I received no drug during training (10 days) and memory retrieval (7 days) sessions, Group II received drug during only memory retrieval session and Group III received drug during both training and memory retrieval sessions. The results suggested that the Group I and Group II recorded 65±2.2% learning compared to 90±2.5% of Group III, on 10^th day of evaluation showing an improvement of 25% in learning skills. Results on memory retrieval, assessed on 17^th day suggested that Group I exhibited 58±8.3% memory retrieval compared to 73±6.1% in Group II. An increase of 15% memory retrieval in Group II over Group I was significant due to administration of drug during memory retrieval session only. Group III exhibited 93±3.3% memory retrieval, which was 35% increase over Group I and 20% increase over group II that was statistically significant. These results suggest significant effect of drug on learning skills and memory retrieval processes.