Sansoninto, a traditional herbal medicine, ameliorates behavioral abnormalities and down-regulation of early growth response-1 expression in mice exposed to social isolation stress

Hironori Fujiwara; Ryohei Tsushima; Ryo Okada; Suresh Awale; Ryota Araki; Takeshi Yabe; Kinzo Matsumoto

doi:10.1016/j.jtcme.2017.03.004

Sansoninto, a traditional herbal medicine, ameliorates behavioral abnormalities and down-regulation of early growth response-1 expression in mice exposed to social isolation stress

J Tradit Complement Med. 2017 Apr 12;8(1):81-88. doi: 10.1016/j.jtcme.2017.03.004. eCollection 2018 Jan.

Authors

Hironori Fujiwara¹, Ryohei Tsushima¹, Ryo Okada¹, Suresh Awale², Ryota Araki³, Takeshi Yabe³, Kinzo Matsumoto¹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Medicinal Pharmacology, Institute of Natural Medicine, University of Toyama, 2630 Sugitani, Toyama, 930-0194, Japan.
² Division of Natural Drug Discovery, Institute of Natural Medicine, University of Toyama, 2630 Sugitani, Toyama, 930-0194, Japan.
³ Laboratory of Functional Biomolecules and Chemical Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Setsunan University, 45-1 Nagaotoge-cho, Hirakata City, Osaka, 573-0101, Japan.

Abstract

Social isolation (SI) mice exhibit behavioral abnormalities such as impairments of sociability- and attention-like behaviors, offering an animal model of neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study aimed to identify the effects of Sansoninto (SST; suān zǎo rén tāng) on the psychiatric symptoms related to ADHD using SI mice. Four-week-old mice were socially isolated during the experimental period, and SST administration (800 or 2400 mg/kg, p.o.) was started at 2 weeks after starting SI. SST ameliorated SI-induced impairments of sociability- and attention-like behaviors in a dose-dependent manner, and tended to ameliorate contextual- and auditory-dependent fear memory deficit. Moreover, the expression level of Egr-1 was down-regulated by SI stress, and was restored by a high dose of SST. These findings suggest that SST is useful for improvement of psychiatric disorders such as ADHD.

Keywords: ADHD, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; Early growth response 1; Egr-1, early growth response-1; GH, group-housed; SI, social isolation; Sansoninto; Sociability deficit; Social isolation mice.