Pak. J. Pharm. Sci., Vol.31, No.6, November 2018, pp.2457-2462 2457 Protective effects of Butea frondosa leaves against stress induced immune impairment in sprague dawley rats Aleza Rizvi 1 , Abbas Ali Mahdi 2 , Shadma Wahab 3 and Anuradha Mishra 1 * 1 Faculty of Pharmacy, Integral University, Kursi road, Lucknow, India 2 Department of Biochemistry, King George Medical University, Lucknow, India 3 Department of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, King Khalid University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Abstract: Stress is thought to impair immune function through emotional or behavioral manifestations thus the present study was done to assessed the effect of ethanolic extract of Butea frondosa (BF) leaves on behaviour, immunomodulatory activity and brain acetyl cholinesterase activity in normal and stress induced male rats. Neuroprotective effects of BF, doses (100,200,400mg/kg p.o) were measured by assessing the changes in the behaviour and the immunity of the rats. In stress control, the results indicated that the retention transfer latency, time spent in a closed arm, agglutination , total leukocytes counts (TLC), total paw edema ,size of spleen , decreased significantly (p<0.01) while glucose level, size of the kidney and the liver, AChE activity increased significantly (p<0.01) in comparison with normal control. In BF (200mg/kg) treated rats, the results indicated that the time spent in a closed arm (p<0.01), agglutination (p<0.01), TLC (p<0.01), total paw edema (p<0.05), size of spleen(p<0.01) , increased significantly while glucose level (p<0.01), size of the kidney and the liver (p<0.01), AChE activity (p<0.01) decreased significantly in comparison with stress control. This study therefore concluded that the ethanolic extract of BF (200mg/kg) showed a protective effect against the stress induced impaired immune system and the psychological disorders. Keywords: Acetylcholinestrase, agglutination, immunity, neuroprotective. INTRODUCTION Psycho Immunology (PI) is the study of the interaction between the psychological processes and the immune systems of the human body (Badruddeen et al., 2012). Stress is the fundamental phenomenon of life that is experienced by every individual. It is a normal human response to pressure when faced with challenging dangerous situations. When stress become extreme it is destructive for the body, and hence to be treated. It includes number of diseases like psychiatric disorders such as immunosuppression, depression and anxiety, endocrines disorders including diabetes, peptic ulcer, ulcerative colitis, increased heart beat, hypertension, blood pressure and metabolic rate, all proposed to increase the overall performance and ability of body to overcome challenge (Agarwal and Marshall, 2001). Butea frondosa Koen. Ex Roxb of the family Fabaceae, is a medium sized tree, growing to 15m tall and widely distributed throughout India. The different extracts of the plant is found to posses antidiabetic (Sujith et al., 2011), antiobessity (Dixit et al., 2012), hepatoprotective (Sharma and Shukla, 2011), antidiarrhoeal (Banji et al., 2010), Aphrodisiac (Ramachandran et al., 2004), anticonvulsant (Kasture et al., 2002), antifilarial (Deshmukh et al., 2014), anti-inflammatory (Shahavi and Desai, 2008) antihelmintic (Borkar et al., 2010) and Antimicrobial (Londonkar and Ranirukmini, 2010). It is traditionally used for the treatment of piles, Conjunctivitis, bleeding nose, urinary tract infection. Leaves have astringent, carminative, tonic, diuretic, appetizer and aphrodisiac properties. They are also used to treat stomach disorders, diabetes, sore throat. Leaves have Glucoside, Kino-oil containing oleic, palmitic, linoleic acid lignoceric acid (Mishra et al., 2012). There is no report on the neuroprotective and effect on immunity of the ethanolic extract of BF, therefore, the present study was undertaken to evaluate the changes occur in a behavioural, immunological and neuropharmacological responses in normal and stress induced rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS Collection and authentication of the plant material The leaves of Butea frondosa were obtained from Musa Bagh, Hardoi Road, Lucknow. It was confirmed and authenticated by National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India (Authentication No.CIF-RB-3-269). Preparation of plant extract The leaves were dried in shade and coarsely powdered. The powder was subjected in soxhlet apparatus for 72h with ethanol. The extract was evaporated under reduced pressure using rotary evaporator till all the ethanol had been removed to give an extract sample with a yield of *Corresponding author: e-mail: anu_ppd2000@rediffmail.com