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

Fujiwara H, Tsushima R, Okada R, Awale S, Araki R, Yabe T, Matsumoto K · Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine · 2018 January

DOI 10.1016/j.jtcme.2017.03.004

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Sansoninto, a traditional medicine, can potentially improve social interaction and attention behavior problems induced by social isolation in mice.

Methods involved the usage of social isolation mice as a representation of neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD. The mice were isolated for the length of the experimental period, starting from when they were four weeks old. Two weeks into the social isolation, administration of Sansoninto commenced at two different doses to assess its impact. The study then observed the impact of the drug on sociability and attention behavior concerns as well as fear memory response. In the discussion of the results, it was found that Sansoninto ameliorated the negative behavioral effects caused by social isolation in a dose-dependent manner, demonstrating a potential to tackle psychiatric issues like ADHD. Likewise, a high dose of Sansoninto was able to restore the downregulation of Egr-1, a gene responsible for neural function, which conventional induced stress from social isolation had previously under-regulated.