Evaluation of Various Extracts of Prunus amygdalus for Anticholinesterase Activity

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurons degenerative disorder which is characterized by progressive loss of memory and nonvascular dementia. Main clinical feature of this disease is the impairment of memory, short term memory and cognitive disability. No treatments are available to cure AD but to manage and prevent and stop progression, 2 classes of mediators approved are choline esterase inhibitors and N-methyl-D aspartase receptor antagonist. Despite competition from other drug discovery methods, natural products are still providing their fair share of new clinical candidates and drugs. Traditional Medicine knowledge database allows drug researchers to start from well-tested and safe botanical material. Especially, herbal medicine is an increasingly common form of alternative therapy for memory disorders and here, an ethanopharmacological approach may provide leads for identifying potential new drugs. In the present study, one of the traditionally practiced herbs for memory disorder was selected and scientifically evaluated for anticholinesterase activity. The collected seeds were crushed and subjected for extraction using solvents of increasing polarity viz. petroleum ether, ethanol and water and on yield calculation, petroleum ether extract was found to have the best yield. In-vitro anticholinesterase activity was evaluated for all the extracts of P.amygdalus at different concentrations and the petroleum ether extract showed 66.37% inhibition at concentration 50%v/v. Alcoholic and aqueous extracts were screened at four different concentrations and at 100µg/ml, percentage inhibition was found to be 64.53% and 37.09% for alcoholic and aqueous extracts respectively. Hence, ethanopharmacological use of P.amygdalus in Alzheimer’s disease was justified.