Prefrontal cortex cell proliferation of adult rats after chronic stress treated with ethanolic extract of Centella asiatica (L) Urban.

Abstract

The decrease of proliferation level of cells in several regions of adult brain is found after
stress exposure. One of such area is prefrontal cortex. Herbal medicine as antistress
has been used widely. Centella asiatica (L) Urban extract was reported to have potent
compounds to increase brain function. The objective of this study is to investigate the
effects of ethanolic extract C. asiatica on cell proliferation of the adult prefrontal cortex
in rats (PFC) after chronic stress. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats, weighing 260-390
g were randomly assigned into six experimental groups, with five rats per group, i.e.
Group 1 as nomal control without chronic stress, Group 2 as stress control, Group 3 as
positive control given fluoxetine, Group 4-6 as treatment groups given 150; 300 and 600
of ethanolic extrac C. asiatica, respectively. Extract were administered orally to the rats
following a period of restraint duration of 6 hours/day for 21 days. Bromodeoxyuridine
(BrdU) immunohistochemistry was used to label the proliferated cells. Physical fractionator
method was used to estimate the total number of proliferated cells. One-way analysis of
variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey post hoc test was used to evaluate the difference
between groups. BrdU-labeled cells on medial prefrontal cortex were as follows:
1715.3±1345.1 (Group 1), 2659.2±2250.6 (Group 2), 4077.4±2415.3 (Group 3),
1784.1±908.3 (Group 4), 3056.6±4263.3 (Group 5), and 2153.4±2259.4 (Group 6).
No significance difference between groups was observed (p>0.05). In conclusion, the
administration of ethanolic extract of C. asiatica does not influence cell proliferation on
prefrontal cortex of rats after chronic stress.