SCREENING OF ANTICONVULSANT ACTIVITY OF VISCUM ALBUM L. AND ESTIMATION OF HESPERITIN IN PLANT USING TLC DENSITOMETRY

Viscum album L. (Ujjral; family – Viscaceae) has long tradition of use as anticonvulsant, but traditional claims of the plant have not been validated scientifically. Therefore, it was envisaged to subject V. album extracts and fractions for screening anticonvulsant activity. Various extracts of V. album aerial parts were screened for anticonvulsant activity at doses of 200 or 400 mg/kg, p.o., upon acute administration in mice using maximal electroshock test. The bioactive extract was partitioned successively to obtain n-hexane fraction (HF), ethyl acetate fraction (EAF) and 1-butanol fraction (BF), which were also screened for anticonvulsant activity at the doses of 25 or 50 mg/kg, p.o. The methanol extract, EAF and BF significantly abolished duration of tonic extension in mice with respect to control. The content of bioactive principle of V. album aerial parts i.e. hesperitin was estimated using validated TLC densitometric method, and was found to be 0.00210% w/w.