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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1439811
This article is part of the Research Topic Drug Discovery Derived from Herbal Medicine/Polypeptide for Neurological Diseases View all 10 articles

Preventing social defeat stress-induced behavioural and neurochemical alterations by repeated treatment with a mix of Centella asiatica, Echinacea purpurea and Zingiber officinale standardized extracts

Provisionally accepted
Alessia Costa Alessia Costa 1Laura Micheli Laura Micheli 1Virginia Sordi Virginia Sordi 1,2Clara Ciampi Clara Ciampi 1Jacopo Lucci Jacopo Lucci 3,4Maria Beatrice Passani Maria Beatrice Passani 5Gustavo Provensi Gustavo Provensi 1*
  • 1 Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drugs and Child Health Area, School of Psychology, University of Florence, Florence, Tuscany, Italy
  • 2 Pharmacology Unit, School of Pharmacy, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy
  • 3 Aboca (Italy), Sansepolcro, Italy
  • 4 Independent researcher, Sansepolcro, Italy
  • 5 Department of Health Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Florence, Firenze, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Prolonged exposure to stress is a risk factor for the onset of several disorders. Modern life is burdened by a pervasive prevalence of stress, which represents a major societal challenge requiring new therapeutic strategies. In this context, botanical drug-based therapies can have a paramount importance. Here we studied the preventive effects of a repeated treatment (p.o. daily, 3 weeks) with a combination of Centella asiatica (200 mg/kg), Echinacea purpurea (20 mg/kg) and Zingiber officinale (150 mg/kg) standardized extracts, on the chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) deleterious outcomes. After 10 days of CSDS exposure, male mice' performances were evaluated in paradigms relevant for social (social interaction test), emotional (tail suspension test), cognitive (novel object recognition) domains as well as for pain perception (cold plate and von Frey tests) and motor skills (rotarod). Mice were then sacrificed, the spinal cords, hippocampi and frontal cortices dissected and processed for RT-PCR analysis. Extracts mix treatment prevented stress-induced social aversion, memory impairment, mechanical and thermal allodynia and reduced behavioural despair independently of stress exposure. The treatment stimulated hippocampal and cortical BDNF and TrkB mRNA levels and counteracted stress-induced alterations in pro-(TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6) and anti-inflammatory (IL4, IL10) cytokines expression in the same areas. It also modulated expression of pain related genes (GFAP and Slc1a3) in the spinal cord. The treatment with the extracts mix obtained from C. asiatica, E. purpurea and Z. officinale may represent a promising strategy to promote resilience and preventing the deleterious effects induced by extended exposure to psychosocial stress.

    Keywords: chronic social defeat stress, Botanical drugs, Cognition, Pain, Neuroinflammation, neurotrophins

    Received: 28 May 2024; Accepted: 12 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Costa, Micheli, Sordi, Ciampi, Lucci, Passani and Provensi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Gustavo Provensi, Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drugs and Child Health Area, School of Psychology, University of Florence, Florence, Tuscany, Italy

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.