Central and Peripheral Analgesic Activity of Turmeric Rhizome Collected from Uttarakhand, India

Abstract

The thermal stimuli in hotplate test and the writhing response of the animals to an intra-peritoneal injection of noxious chemicals were used to screen both centrally and peripherally acting analgesic activity. The methanolic extract of Curcuma longa was investigated for its antinociceptive activity in animal models collected from Ukhimath and Haldwani, in dose dependent manner. Ibuprofen and indomethacin, were used as standard drugs for different activities and saline water was used as control. The analgesic action of Curcuma longa can be attributed to reduce the peripheral nociception by inhibition of prostaglandin release. The result from present study indicates that the methanolic extract of Curcuma longa rhizome collected from Ukhimath (SP-1) showed significant (p < 0.05) peripheral analgesic activity with 42.25 % inhibition at dose level of 100 mg/kg body weight concentration, which was close to the effect induced by standard drug ibuprofen causing 43.91 % inhibition. Methanolic extract of Ukhimath collection at the dose level of 50 and 100 mg/kg body wt., manifested significant central analgesic activity (3.33 ± 0.02 to 4.16 ± 0.02 and 3.37 ± 0.02 to 4.19 ± 0.02, respectively) which continued until 120 min after administration; whereas the extract of Haldwani collection at the dose of 50 and 100 mg/kg body wt., showed intense effects just like the reference drug indomethacin at 60 min which continued till 120 min, (3.24 ± 0.03 to 4.08 ± 0.03 and 3.30 ± 0.02 to 4.10 ± 0.04, respectively). In our study a wide variation are observed in different samples within the activities, which might be because of climatic, edaphic and genetic variation.