Ashwini .G, Pranay.P, Thrinath.G, Karnaker Reddy.T, Giri Prasad.V.S
Dementia is one of the age related mental problems and characteristic symptom of various neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease which is age related. The whole plant of Marsilea quadrifolia isused to enhance the memorypower. The present work was undertaken to justify the traditional claim of the plant Marsilea quadrifolia as anti alzheimeric agent in mice. The ethanolic extract of the whole plant was selected for the study. The exteroceptive behavioral models such as elevated plus maze, Morris water maze and Ymaze were used to evaluate the learning and memory, where as scopolamine is the natural ageing inducing amnesia served as interoceptive models. Two doses of (250mg/kg, 500mg/kg) ethanolic extract of Marsilea qudrifolia were orally administered for seven successive days in separate groups of animals and the doses were selected according to the animal weight. The both doses of ethanolic extract of plant marsilea significantly improved the learning and memory in mice. Furthermore the both doses were significantly reversed the amnesia induced by scopolamine (0.4mg/kg I.P). The anti oxidant property and presence of steroids of Marsilea quadrifolia may be contributing favorably to memory enhancement effect. Since scopolamine induced amnesia was reversed by Marsilea, it is possible that the beneficial effect on learning and memory was due to facilitation of cholinergic transmission in mouse brain. However further studies are necessitated to identify the exact mechanism of action. In the present investigation Marsilea quadrifolia has shown promise a memory enhancing agent in all the laboratory models employed.
