Pharmacological actions of berberine on the central nervous system.

The alkaloid, berberine is widely distributed in the vegetable kingdom. The ber berine containing plants are largely used in indigenous medicine. A crude extract known as "Rasaut, Rasvanti and Rasanjana" is a widely used household remedy as a stomachic, bitter tonic and diaphoretic. There is a renewed interest in berberine because of its reported usefulness in diarrhoeas (1) cholera (2) and experimental amoebiasis (3, 4). Some of our studies on the actions of berberine on the central nervous system are pre sented in this paper.