title: Methanol extract of Longanae Arillus augments pentobarbital-induced sleep  behaviors through the modification of GABAergic systems.
abstract: This experiment was performed to investigate whether methanol extract of Longanae Arillus (MELA) has hypnotic effects and/or enhances pentobarbital-induced sleep behaviors through the GABAergic systems. MELA prolonged sleep time and reduced sleep latency induced by pentobarbital similar to muscimol, a GABAA receptors agonist. MELA also increased sleep rate and sleep time in the combined administration with pentobarbital at the sub-hypnotic dosage and showed synergic effects with muscimol in potentiating sleep onset and enhancing sleep time induced by pentobarbital. However, MELA itself did not induce sleep at higher dose which was used in this experiment. In addition, both of MELA and pentobarbital increased chloride influx in primary cultured cerebellar granule cells. MELA increased GABAA receptors gamma-subunit expression and had no effect on the expression of alpha- and beta-subunits, and glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) in primary cultured cerebellar granule cells, showing different expression of subunits from pentobarbital. In conclusion, MELA itself does not induce sleep, but it augments pentobarbital-induced sleep behaviors through the modification of GABAergic systems.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 361-763, South Korea.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Jae Soon
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Eun
authors.forename: Sang-Yoon
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Nam
authors.forename: Yun-Bae
authors.initials: YB
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jin-Tae
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.forename: Myung-Koo
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Ki-Wan
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Oh