薬理と治療

Abstract

Background　The clinical symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome（CFS）have been shown to include disorders in the neuroendocrine, autonomic, and immune systems. Cytokines produced in the brain play significant roles are known to develop central nervous system symptoms such as abnormally prolonged fatigue, pain, impaired thinking, depression, and sleep disturbance through neural-immune interactions. In Kampo, a traditional Japanese medicine, tonic formula herbal medicines called “hozai”, e.g. Juzentaihoto, has been traditionally used to treat against anemia, anorexia, particularly physical strength recovery for chronic disease, postoperatively, convalescents, aging or viral infections. 　Polyriboinosinic: polyribocytidylic acid（poly I: C）is frequently applied in immunologically fatigue animal experiments to mimic a condition of viral infection. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of juzentaihoto on an immunologically fatigue mouse model induced by intraperitoneal injection of poly I: C.Materials and Methods　5 weeks ages male ICR mice were randomly divided into four groups: control, poly I: C, juzentaihoto, and poly I: C＋juzentaihoto. Mice were administered juzentaihoto（1％）in their food（chow）. All mice were injected intraperitoneally on 2 alternate days（days 1 and 3）with vehicle（saline）or 20 mg╱kg poly I: C. Subsequently, the locomotor activity was measured once a day over 5 days. Furthermore, the expression of interleukin（IL）- 1β and IL-1 receptor antagonist（ra）mRNAs in the hypothalamus was measured using real-time polymerase chain reaction. Results　The results indicated a significantly increased locomotor activity and decreased mRNA expression of IL-1β in the juzentaihoto＋poly I: C groups compared with the hypothalamus of the poly I: C group. Conclusions　These results indicated that juzentaihoto reduced the poly I: C-induced physical momentum decrease, plausibly through the intracerebral anti-inflammatory effect of juzentaihoto. （Jpn Pharmacol Ther 2022；50：993‒1002）