Anti-stress activity of risperidone, an atypical antipsychotic drug, in rat stress models

Abstract

The present investigation was undertaken to explore the effect of risperidone on stress induced alteration in ulcer index, plasma levels of corticosterone, norepinephrine, glucose, cholesterol as well as adrenal gland weight. The anti-stress effect was evaluated against cold restraint stress, 4 h restraint stress, water immersion restraint stress and food deprived stress models. The rats (n=6) were randomly assigned to non-stressed control, stress control and treatment groups (risperidone 0.1, 0.3 and 1.0 mg/kg, p.o., for 21 days) in each stress model. Anti-stress effect of risperidone in each stress model was studied by ulcer scoring, weighing adrenal gland, estimation of plasma corticosterone, norepinephrine, glucose and total cholesterol levels using HPLC with PDA detector, flourimetry and span diagnostic kits respectively. Results show that cold restraint stress, 4 h restraint stress, water immersion restraint stress and food deprivation stress increased ulcer index, corticosterone, norepinephrine, glucose and total cholesterol levels in plasma significantly. In contrast to above observation, no significant effect of stress on adrenal gland weight was found. 21 days repeated oral pretreatment with risperidone in all the stress models mitigated the stress induced increase in ulcer index, plasma levels of corticosterone, norepinephrine, glucose and total cholesterol. This study substantiates that the risperidone is effective in minimizing stress responses thereby beneficial in stress therapy.