Epilepsy is a set of serious and complex neurological disorders that attack around 65 million people globally. Many anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) have been discovered to solve this problem, but still approximately 30% of patients with seizures are medically intractable. Due to the numerous side effects and drug resistance of current available AEDs, many herbal medicines have been studied to gain new anti-epileptic constituents. As a traditional medicinal plant, Cynanchum otophyllum Schneid has been proved to show good anti-epileptic effect. And the extracts of Cynanchum saccatum and Cynanchum chinense, which also belong to the same genus were reported to have similar anti-epileptic activities. So further explorations of constitutions derived from above-mentioned three Cynanchum species have been carried out in the present work. Their anti-epileptic effects and potential mechanisms have been studied by both in vivo zebrafish and in vitro cultured mouse cortical neuron models. The results showed that total extract of QYS (C. otophyllum), both ethyl acetate and butyl alcohol extracts of underground part of ERT (C. chinense), ethyl acetate extract of underground part and butyl alcohol extract of aboveground part of NPX (C. saccatum) could significantly reduce the over-active locomotor behaviors of pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced zebrafish. Besides, downregulation of fos gene expression in zebrafish exposed to PTZ and reduction of damage from the influence of convulsant 4-Aminopyridine (4-AP) were also observed on QYS treated cortical neurons. In summary, the present work provided scientific evidences for the anti-epileptic activities of C. otophyllum and C. saccatum. Further studies are still in progress to determine the more active components so as to discover promising agent for the prevention and therapy of epilepsy.

癲癇是一種嚴重而且複雜的以神經系統功能異常為主要特徵的疾病，目前全世 界有大約 6500 萬人口患有癲癇。臨床患者的病症有 70%左右可以通過現有的抗 癲癇藥物得到控制，但仍有接近 30%患有難治型癲癇的患者的症狀無法改善。 現有抗癲癇藥物由於神經毒性或藥物耐藥性，難治型癲癇對其沒有響應，因此 越來越多的研究者開始研究植物藥中的抗癲癇成分，希望能獲得更優的抗癲癇 藥物。青陽參作為我國傳統民族中藥，現已被證實具有抗癲癇的功效，同屬植 物西藏牛皮消和鵝絨藤的提取物也被報導具有相似的活性。本研究主要圍繞上 述三種鵝絨藤屬植物的抗癲癇活性成分開展，通過在體的斑馬魚動物模型和離 體的小鼠皮質神經元模型對其活性成分和作用機理進行進一步的研究。結果表 明青陽參總提取物、鵝絨藤地下部分的乙酸乙酯和正丁醇提取物，西藏牛皮消 地下部分乙酸乙酯提取物以及地上部分的正丁醇提取物可以顯著的降低戊四唑 誘導斑馬魚產生的癲癇樣游泳行為。此外，青陽參提取物可以下調戊四唑誘導 的斑馬魚中 fos 基因的表達並且保護皮層神經元降低其受致癇劑 4-氨基吡啶的 影響。綜上所述，本研究為青陽參以及西藏牛皮消的抗癲癇活性提供了科學依 據。對於其具體的活性成分以及機制的深入研究還在進行中。 關鍵詞 抗癲癇；作用機制；鵝絨藤屬；斑馬魚；皮質神經元