EVALUATION OF THE ANALGESIC ACTIVITY OF THE METHANOL EXTRACT OF CASSYTHA FILIFORMIS PLANT

ABSTRACT

According to the World Health Organization, pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage Cassytha filiformis, family Lauraceae is commonly known as love vine. Among the bini’s it is known as Agbegbekan, Igbo: Afifia ogu, Yoruba: Omonigelegele while in Hausa, it is known as Rumfar-gada. It is a parasitic vine which has numerous uses. As a medicinal plant it is traditionally used for the treatment of pain, inflammation, cancer, African trypanosomiasis and many other related diseases. The methanolic extract of the whole plant was screened for analgesic activities based on its traditional use using different animal models. The screening models for analgesic effect used in this study includes acetic acid induced mouse writhing at a dose of 10 ml/kg of 0.6% acetic acid administered intraperitoneally, hot plate model as well as formalin induced pain test at a dose of 0.02 ml of 1% formalin administered subcutaneously into the right hind paw which measures pain related response. The positive control used are Aspirin 100 mg/kg for acetic acid induced pain model and Pentazocine 10 mg/kg for hot plate as well as formalin induced pain test while the negative control used for all models was 0.2 ml of distilled water. The extract was administered at oral doses of 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg for all three models an hour prior to either acetic acid or formalin administration.