Abstract
Male Wistar rats were used in this study and were given free access to 25% ethanol in drinking water. The rats thus exposed to alcohol developed addiction in 90 days. At 120 days, a group of rats was given a daily dose of 5.0 ml SKV, a herbal drug mixture that is often used to stop craving and induce voluntary reduction of alcohol consumption. Both control and SKV-treated rats were fed a modified chow diet ad libitum and the experiment was continued for 240 days. SKV administration caused a slow but progressive drop in ethanol consumption. With reduced voluntary intake of ethanol, the rats exhibited normal weight gain and these rats developed no withdrawal symptoms with blood alcohol levels reduced from 180 mg/dl to 63 mg/dl after the drug treatment. An increase in (Na+-K+) ATPase and Mg2+-ATPase was observed in all regions except Pons-medulla with alcohol consumption. A decrease was recorded in Ca2+-ATPase in all regions except Pons-medulla and cerebrum. Partial reversal of these changes was observed with ethanol restriction. In summary, changes in brain enzyme activity were observed due to ethanol toxicity and SKV treatment led to a restriction of voluntary ethanol ingestion and consequent correction of some of the abnormalities.
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Nachiappan, V., Shanmugasundaram, K.R., Mufti, S.I. (1993). Control of Alcoholism by Treatment with SKV, A Herbal Drug Mixture from India. In: Alling, C., Diamond, I., Leslie, S.W., Sun, G.Y., Wood, W.G. (eds) Alcohol, Cell Membranes, and Signal Transduction in Brain. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2470-0_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2470-0_17
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