Assessment of the Antinociceptive, Anti-Inflammatory, and Acute Toxicity Effects of Solanum Dulcamara Essential Oil in Male Mice

Pain is a complex set of unpleasant sensory, emotional, and cognitive experiences that are relieved with synthetic and herbal remedies. Of course, medicinal plants are more important than chemical drugs due to fewer side effects. Solanum dulcamara is one of the most important medicinal plants used in traditional Iranian medicine to treat rheumatic and inflammation pains. The aim of this study was to investigate the analgesic, anti-inflammatory and acute toxicity effects of Solanum dulcamara stem in male mice.

In this experimental study, 84 male mice were used in 6 groups such as control and treated groups with essential oils of 30, 100 and 300 mg/kg. In pain assessment tests that included writhing (assessment of abdominal contractions), Tail Flick (assessment of tail jump duration), and formalin (assessment of pain associated with sole of foot), animals were given gavage or oral morphine (intraperitoneally) and naloxone (Intraperitoneally) with a dose of 300 mg/kg of essential oil. In the xylene test (to evaluate inflammation), the animals were divided into 5 groups: control, essential oil (oral) and dexamethasone (intraperitoneal).

Use of 300 mg/kg essential oil in writhing tests (decreased from 41 in control to 13) and tail flick (increased from 2.8±0.2 seconds in control group to 6.1±0.5 seconds) showed significant analgesic effect (p<0.01). Also, in the xylene test, the use of 100 and 300 mg/kg of essential oil reduced the rate of ear inflammation in mice by 4.1±0.8 and 3.8±0.1, respectively, compared to the control group.

It seems that SDEO probably have both analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects in male mice.