The effect of silimarin and buspirone on anxiety and depressive-like behaviors induced by chronic restraint stress in male mice

Abstract

Introduction: Stress and its ongoing complications such as the appearance of anxiety and depression remain the health care problems in human societies. Therefore, achieving an effective therapeutic strategy to overcome stress and its related disorders is of great interest. Aim: This study aims to assess the anti-depressant and anxiolytic effects of Buspirone and Silymarin alone and in combination with the in restraint stress (RS) model of mice. Materials and methods: Animals were divided into control and stress groups. Animals in stress groups underwent Restraint stress (2h/day, for 14 contentious days) and were randomly divided into NS, Bus, Sil 100, Sil 200, and Bus + Sil 200 subgroups. 24 hours after the end of this period, behavioral tests were used to evaluate depression and anxiety. After conducting behavioral tests, serum corticosteroid levels were measured. Result: Restraint stress could markedly induce depression- and anxiety-like behaviors in NS mice and increase corticosterone levels. However, the administration of Buspirone (5 mg/kg) for mice in Bus subgroup and Buspirone + Silymarin (5 and 200 mg/kg, respectively) for Bus + Sil 200 mice, were able to attenuate depression- and anxiety-like behaviors as well as corticosterone levels. Conclusion: Silymarin at the dose of 200 mg/kg was able to improve Buspirone anti- depressive and anxiety-like effects in the RS model. Thence, it likely can be proposed as adjuvant therapy for the treatment of stress-related complications. However, its clinical use not only needs to designing molecular studies, but also depends on detailed and precise trails.