Reecha Madaan1, Suresh Kumar2, Gundeep Bansal2, Anupam Sharma3
1Chitkara College of Pharmacy, Chitkara University, Rajpura, Punjab, India
2Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
and Drug Research, Punjabi University, Patiala- 147 002, Punjab, India
3Pharmacognosy Division, University Institute of
Pharmaceutical Sciences, Panjab University, Chandigarh-160 014, India
Pharmacognosy Communications,2011,1,1,4-51.
DOI:10.5530/pc.2011.1.2
Published: July 2011
Type:Invited Review
ABSTRACT
In present era, a sudden holocaust of mental disorders, and recognition of severe side effects and addiction liabilities associated with long term administration of widely prescribed synthetic drugs have aroused the attention of researchers towards natural resources. This review includes 351 references, and emphasizes pharmacological reports on anxiolytic plant products and formulations. Various chemical constituents (with structures), isolated from different plants, responsible for antianxiety activity, and their possible mechanism of actions have been incorporated in this review.The review has been compiled using references from major databases like Chemical Abstracts, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Abstracts, PubMed, Scirus, Science Direct and Online Journals. It has been concluded that preliminary antianxiety activity studies have been carried out on crude extracts of most of traditonally used and clinically potential plants. Such plantsneed to be explored properly with a view to isolate anxiolytic constituents, and to evaluate their possible mode of actions.
Key words: Antianxiety activity, chemical constituents, mechanism of action, pharmacology.