Context: Depression is one of the most common psychiatric diseases. Acorus tatarinowii Schott (Araceae) has shown many bioactivities in treatment of senile dementia and epilepsy. However, there is no report on antidepressant-like effects of the essential oil (EO) and its major components on animals under standardized experimental procedures. Objective: This study was designed to investigate the antidepressant properties of EO and asarones from the rhizomes of A. tatarinowii. Materials and methods: Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was used to determine the composition of EO. The forced swimming test (FST), tail suspension test (TST) and open-field test (OFT) were used to evaluate the antidepressant-like effects of EO and asarones. EO [30, 60, 120 Results: From the results of GC/MS, it was found that the main components of the EO were a-asarone (9.18%) and b-asarone (68.9%). From the results of FST and TST, the immobility time can be reduced to 166 AE 17 s (p50.01) and 146 AE 15 s (p50.05) by EO at the dose of 120 mg/ kg. Moreover, significant antidepressant-like effects were shown by a-asarone with the immobility time of 178 AE 15 s (p50.05) and 159 AE 17 s (p50.01) in FST, or 147 AE 12 (p50.05) and 134 AE 12 s (p50.01) in TST at the dose of 10 and 20 mg/kg. b-Asarone also displayed antidepressant-like effects with an immobility time of 179 AE 18 s (p50.05) in FST or 142 AE 14 (p50.05) in TST at 20 mg/kg. However, no change in ambulation was observed in the OFT.
Conclusion:The results obtained indicate that the EO and asarones from the rhizomes of A. tatarinowii can be considered as a new therapeutic agent for curing depression.