Interaction of two memory enhancing herbal drugs memory plus and mentat with morphine and imipramine in mice

Background: The non-medical self-administration of memory enhancing drugs is a common practice. Present study was designed to evaluate interactions of two such herbal drugs- Memory plus (MP) and Mentat, with other central nervous system active drugs.Methods: Two activities-analgesic activity and antidepressant activity were performed using adult albino mice of both sexes weighing 25-30g to observe the interactions of the herbal drugs with morphine and imipramine respectively. For each activity animals were divided into seven groups of six mice each. Group-I was control group receiving 0.2ml of 1% Tween 80 ip/ 0.2 ml saline p.o, Group II, III and IV acute treatment groups; received single dose of herbal (2mg/kg ip MP or 200mg/kg po Mentat) CNS active drugs alone in subeffective doses. Group II received morphine 2mg/kg ip, group III imipramine 2mg/kg ip and group IV-received MP/Mentat+ morphine or imipramine respectively. Groups V, VI and VII were subchronic treatment groups, received drugs once daily for eight days in same dose as acute treatment groups II, III and IV respectively. Analgesic activity was measured as prolongation of reaction time by hot plate method and antidepressant activity by reduction in despair time using Porsolt’s forced swimming test.Results: When administered for 8 days, both MP and Mentat potentiated the effect of morphine preventing the development of tolerance to analgesic effect (P< 0.05). However the antidepressant effect of imipramine was not modified by any in subchronic treatment groups.Conclusions: Two herbal memory enhancing preparations Memory plus and Mentat potentiate analgesic effect of morphine but not the antidepressant action of imipramine in mice

Interaction of two memory enhancing herbal drugs Memory Plus and Mentat with diazepam and phenytoin sodium in mice

Background: The non-medical self-administration of memory enhancing drugs is a common practice. Present study was designed to evaluate interactions of two such herbal drugs Memory Plus (MP) and Mentat, with other central nervous system (CNS) active drugs.Methods: Two activities - pentobarbitone sleeping time (PST) and maximal electroshock seizures (MES) were performed using adult albino mice weighing 25-30 g to observe the interactions of the herbal drugs with diazepam and phenytoin sodium, respectively. For each activity, animals were divided into seven groups of six mice each. Group I was a control group receiving 0.2 ml of 1% Tween 80 i.p/0.2 ml saline p.o, Group II, III and IV acute treatment groups; received single dose of herbal (2 mg/kg i.p MP or 200 mg/kg p.o Mentat) CNS-active drugs alone in subeffective doses group II - diazepam 5 mg/kg i.p, Group III PS 15 mg/kg i.p and Group IV - MP/Mentat+diazepam or PS, respectively. Groups V, VI, and VII were subchronic treatment groups, received drugs once daily for 8 days same as acute treatment groups. Sleeping time was measured as the interval between the loss and recovery of righting reflex and anticonvulsant activity by giving supra maximal shock via ear electrodes using a techno electro convulsiometer.Results: Both MP and Mentat showed potentiation of effect of diazepam and PS in subchronic treatment groups by significantly prolonging PST (p<0.05) and by showing significant percentage protection in MES method (p<0.05) compared to control group.Conclusion: Subchronic administration of MP and Mentat shows significant interaction with diazepam and PS. Further human studies are warranted to confirm these findings

Utility of circulating cell-free Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA for the improved diagnosis of abdominal tuberculosis.

Abdominal tuberculosis (ATB) continues to pose a major diagnostic challenge for clinicians due to its nonspecific clinical presentation, variable anatomical location and lack of sensitive diagnostic tools. In spite of the development of several assays till date; no single test has proved to be adequate for ATB diagnosis. In this study, we for the first time report the detection of circulating cell-free Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) DNA (cfMTB-DNA) in ascitic fluid (AF) samples and its utility in ATB diagnosis. Sixty-five AF samples were included in the study and processed for liquid culture, cytological, biochemical and molecular assays. A composite reference standard (CRS) was formulated to categorize the patients into 'Definite ATB' (M. tuberculosis culture positive, n = 2), 'Probable ATB' (n = 16), 'Possible ATB' (n = 13) and 'Non-TB' category (n = 34). Two molecular assays were performed, namely, the novel cfMTB-DNA qPCR assay targeting M. tuberculosis devR gene and Xpert MTB/RIF assay (Xpert), and their diagnostic accuracy was assessed using CRS as reference standard. Clinical features such as fever, loss of weight, abdominal distension and positive Mantoux were found to be strongly associated with ATB disease (p<0.05). cfMTB-DNA qPCR had a sensitivity of 66.7% (95% CI:40.9,86.7) with 97.1% specificity (95% CI:84.7,99.9) in 'Definite ATB' and 'Probable ATB' group collectively. The sensitivity increased to 70.9% (95% CI:51.9,85.8) in the combined 'Definite', 'Probable' and 'Possible' ATB group with similar specificity. The cfMTB-DNA qPCR assay performed significantly better than the Xpert assay which demonstrated a poor sensitivity of ≤16.7% with 100% (95% CI:89.7,100) specificity (p<0.001). We conclude that cfMTB-DNA qPCR assay is an accurate molecular test that can provide direct evidence of M. tuberculosis etiology and has promise to pave the way for improving ATB diagnosis