Effect of Centella asiatica (Gotu kola) on the antioxidant enzyme activities and glutathione levels in different regions of rat brain during pentylenetetrazole-induced epilepsy

Epilepsy is a convulsive episode and is the most frequent neurodegenerative disorder affecting about 50 million people world-wide. Centella asiatica (CA) has been used as a medicine in the Ayurvedic tradition of India for thousands of years. The purpose of the present study is to determine the antiepileptic activity from a medicinal plant CA. The fractionated extracts are found to be active against the pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) induced epileptic rats. The enzymic and non-enzymic antioxidants i.e. reduced glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione-S-transferase (GST) superoxide dismutase (SOD), and catalase (CAT) were evaluated in control and experimental groups. The results showed that the CA extracts significantly suppress the (PTZ)-induced epileptic seizures in rats.