Behavioural Evaluation of the Anticonvulsant Properties of the Traditional Medicine Anonna Senegalensis on Parabss Drosophila melanogaster Mutants.

Epilepsy is the most common serious neurological disorder affecting 50 million people worldwide, 40 millions of which live in developing countries. Despite the introduction of a dozen of new Anti-Epileptic Drugs (AEDs), one third of the patients continue to have seizure regardless of receiving a AEDs treatment. This emphasize on the need to discover new drugs with different mechanisms of action. Traditional medicine (TM), pays a significant role in the treatment of epilepsy in many countries and offers an affordable and accessible alternative to AEDs. However, the lack of both empirical testing in animal models and clinical data places constrains to their clinical recommendation.\n\nIn this study, we use Drosophila melanogaster as a model for epilepsy and tested the anti-seizure effect of leaf and stem bark aqueous extract form Annona senegalensis, a plant used as anti-convulsant by rural populations in Africa.\n\nOur results show, that at the concentrations tested, the leaf extract of A. senegalensis was more effective than the AEDs phenytoin and phenobarbital to control seizures. These promising results demonstrate that Drosophila is an excellent model for new drug discovery and that it could be used to do large scale screening of TMs for the treatment of epilepsy.