Aqueous Extract of Saffron (Crocus sativus) Increases Brain Dopamine and Glutamate Concentrations in Rats

Copyright © 2013 Hosseinali Ettehadi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Li-cense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Recent studies involving human and animal models have identified that saffron helps in the improvement of depression. Antidepressants are known to function in part by increasing brain serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine concentra-tions. Therefore, to identify the cellular and molecular mechanism(s) underlying this property of saffron, we measured changes in rat brain dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine and glutamate concentrations after administration of varying doses of an aqueous extract of saffron stigma. Male Wistar rats (250 ± 30 g) were administered a single dose of saffro