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BACOPA MONNIERI AS A NATURAL REMEDY AGAINST ALCOHOL INDUCED NEUROTOXICITY

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  • Author:
  • Dr. D. Veera Nagendra Kumar
  • ISBN: 978-81-981432-9-7
  • Published Month: December
  • Published Year: 2024

Alcohol is the most psychoactive substance used after caffeine. Chronic alcoholism is a major public health problem and causes multi organ diseases and toxicity. Although the liver metabolizes the majority of ethanol ingested, it has intoxicating effects in the brain diseases. Chronic alcohol intake is associated with several degenerative and inflammatory processes in the central nervous system (CNS). Evidence is accumulating that intermediates of oxygen reduction may be associated with the development of alcoholic disease. The brain is deficient in oxidative defense mechanisms and hence is at great risk of damage mediated by reactive oxygen species (ROS) resulting in molecular and cellular dysfunction. The central nervous system (CNS) is vulnerable to free radical damage because of brain’s high oxygen consumption, its abundant lipid content, and the relative paucity of antioxidant enzymes as compared with other tissues. Moreover, brain has a high ratio of membrane surface area of cytoplasmic ratio, extended axonal morphology prone to injury, and neuronal cells are non-replicating. ROS can increase the permeability of blood brain barrier, after tubulin formation, and inhibit the mitochondrial respiration. Free radicals generated in the brain are also reported to influence gene expression, subsequently effecting apoptosis and neuronal death. The central nervous system is vulnerable to oxidative stress, especially when a toxicant can modify the physiological balance between anti- and pro-oxidant mechanisms. Bacopa monnieri Linn. (syn. Herpestis monnieri Linn. H.B.&K), family Scrophulariaceae (vernacular; Brahmi), is an annual creeping plant found throughout India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China and Taiwan. It is also found in Florida and other southern states of the USA in wet, damp and marshy regions. Regular use of Bacopa monnieri leaf as a natural health supplement is beneficial in the treatment of neurological disorders associated with free radical-induced damages. Bacopa Monnieri extracts are able to cure anxiety, epilepsy, bronchitis and asthma, irritable bowl’s syndrome and gastric ulcers. Its major constituents including two saponins (bacoside A and bacoside B) have been isolated and characterized. The plant has been shown as a potent free radical scavenger and antioxidant. Further-more, Bacopa Monnieri extracts have been shown to in -crease endogenous antioxidant enzyme activities in brain tissue of rats. The brain is exposed throughout the life to oxidative stress and a number of diseases of the brain have been hypothesized to involve free radical induced oxidative damage either as a cause or as consequence of the disease processes. This organ is highly susceptible to free radical attack because it generates more of these toxicants per gram of tissue than does any other organ and yet not particularly enriched with protective antioxidants. Hence, the present study was undertaken to assess the neuro protective role of Bacopa Monnieri against oxidative stressin the brain of rats exposed to alcohol by measuring the enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants. The reviewed literature reveals the state of alcohol and its effect on antioxidant enzymes system. Alcoholism is a serious problem for any age group that can have pathological effect on several important systems of the body. When we study such alcoholic patients, the production of free radicals and to counter these free radical’s antioxidant enzymes system alterations would be expected in the body. The therapeutic role of Bacopa Monnieri on alcoholic condition independently with reference to antioxidant system has not been reported so far. Objectives Of the Present Study: Several authors reported that alcohol-induced brain damage rats showed reduced activities of antioxidant enzymes and ATPases activity. Alcohol itself induced decreased antioxidants. Keeping in view of this above literature and background, the Principal Investigator has planned the following program of work to elucidate the role of Bacopa monnieri in inhibiting (suppressing) the free radicals produced in alcoholic brain employing rat as an animal model. ➢ To evaluate protective role of Bacopa monnieri on brain damage against alcohol induced oxidative stress. ➢ To observe the changes in the antioxidant defense mechanism in alcohol induced rats and Bacopa monnieri supplemented rats. ➢ To examine whether two months period of Bacopa monnieri treatment to alcohol induced rats have any alterations in antioxidant enzymes system, and ATP ases. ➢ To investigate the protective role of Bacopa monnieri on alcohol induced oxidative damage of brain and with treatment of Bacopa monnieri by histopathological studies. These chapters are preceded by a general introduction, material and methods and succeeded by summary and conclusion followed by bibliography

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