Effects of homeopathic remedy dragonfly (anax imperator) on learning and memory in Morris water maze and passive avoidance tests in mice

O Mutlu, G Ulak, I Celikyurt, F Akar, F Erden, T Demirtas. Kocaeli University Medical Faculty, Pharmacology/41380, Turkey

Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners treat patients using highly diluted (Ernst, 2002) preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient. In the context of homeopathy, the term remedy is used to refer to a substance which has been prepared with a particular procedure and intended for patient use. Dragonfly (anax imperator) is a homeopathic remedy used in attention deficiency hyperactivity sendrom (adhd). The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of dragonfly on learning and memory in mice, using the Morris water maze (mwm) and passive avoidance (pa) tests; moreover the effects of dragonfly on mk-801 induced cognitive dysfunction was evaluated. Mk-801 causes memory deterioration and hyperlocomotion similar to adhd patients. 30-40 g male balb-c mice were treated with dragonfly (30C and 200C) or mk-801 (0.2 mg/kg) alone or concurrently (n=10). Dragonfly(D) and mk-801 were administered subchronically for 6 days ip 60 min. and 30 min. respectively before the daily performance of mwm test, or acutely before the acquisition trial of pa test. We used a liquid form of the dragonfly remedy (100ml) which was a mixture of the extracted body fluid of the dragonfly and alcohol (%25). D30C was the 30 times diluted form of the remedy while D200C was diluted for 200 times. Dragonfly was injected as 0.05ml/10g of body weight. The results of this study revealed that (1) In the mwm test, mk-801 (133.4±12.87, p<0.001), D30 (118.4±16.04; p<0.01) and D200 (110.5±13.79; p<0.01) significantly increased escape latency at the end of five acquisition sessions compared to control group (48.2±8.48). Dragonfly combined with mk-801 (mk+D30=167.8±4.36; mk+D200=167.7±4.95) also significanly increased escape latency compared to mk-801 alone group (p<0.05) (One way Anova post hoc Tukey’s test). Time spent in escape platform’s quadrant in the probe trial significantly decreased in mk-801 (18.5±3.69; p<0.05), D30 (15.63±2.03; p<0.001) and D200 group(15.52±1.86; p<0.001) compared to control group (30.59±2) and also in dragonfly+mk-801 treated animals (mk+D30=7.1±2.22; p<0.05) compared to mk-801 alone group (One way Anova post hoc Tukey’s test). Mean distance to platform significantly increased in mk-801 (32.71± 0.9; p<0.01), D30 (29.82±2.25; p<0.05) and D200 groups (31.33±1.97; p<0.01) compared to control group (22.38±1.06) (One way Anova post hoc Tukey’s test). In the mwm test, Dragonfly combined with mk-801 significantly decreased speed of the animals (mk+D30=9.07; mk+D200=8,82±2) compared to mk alone group (18.11±1.18) (One way Anova post hoc Tukey’s test). There was no significant difference between the first day latency of groups in the pa test while D30 (42.38±12.17; p<0.05), D200(30.37±9.71; p<0.05) and mk-801(29.56±6.24; p<0.01) significantly decreased retention latency compared to control group (96.79±21.11) (One way Anova post hoc Tukey’s test). Our results showed that a homeopathic remedy dragonfly disturbs learning and memory in the mwm and pa tests. Combination of dragonfly with mk-801 significantly disturbed memory compared to mk-801 alone group. Moreover dragonfly decreased the speed of the animals in mk-801 alone group in the mwm test. As a conclusion dragonfly is not an available drug to be used in adhd syndrome although it may exert some other behavioural effects which should be investigated in further studies.

Ernst E (2002) Brıt J Clın Pharmaco 54(6):577–582