TY - JOUR
T1 - Ethnopharmacological investigation of plants used to treat susto, a folk illness
AU - Bourbonnais-Spear, Natalie
AU - Awad, Rosalie
AU - Merali, Zul
AU - Maquin, Pedro
AU - Cal, Victor
AU - Arnason, John Thor
N1 - Funding Information:
We are extremely grateful to participating healers and their families, and to the communities of Indian Creek, Jalacte and Big Falls. We are also thankful for the technical and logistic support offered by the Belize Indigenous Training Institute. We are also grateful to Maïa Miguelez, Nathalie Lukenbill, John James, Christine Mountney, Judith Hotte-Bernard and Sylvie Emond for their time and input into this project. As well, we would like to thank Luis Poveda and Pedro Sachez for their taxonomic expertise and collaboration on this study. Funding for the project was provided by an NSERC (Canada) grant to John Thor Arnason and an FQRNT (Québec) scholarship to Natalie Bourbonnais-Spear.
PY - 2007/2/12
Y1 - 2007/2/12
N2 - Selected plants used to treat susto, a folk illness recognized by various groups of Latin America, were screened for anxiolytic and/or fear suppression activity in behavioral assays. We found that the plant used by most of the healers interviewed (Adiantum tetraphyllum Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd.; Adiantaceae) suppressed certain components of anxiety and fear. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the biological activity of Adiantum tetraphyllum. This finding supports the contention that susto may represent what in the Western culture is defined as fear or anxiety, and hence may share the same psychological, biological or neural underpinnings. In light of the available literature, this represents the first experimental investigation of the biological activity of plants specifically in the perspective of their use in treating a culture-bound syndrome.
AB - Selected plants used to treat susto, a folk illness recognized by various groups of Latin America, were screened for anxiolytic and/or fear suppression activity in behavioral assays. We found that the plant used by most of the healers interviewed (Adiantum tetraphyllum Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd.; Adiantaceae) suppressed certain components of anxiety and fear. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the biological activity of Adiantum tetraphyllum. This finding supports the contention that susto may represent what in the Western culture is defined as fear or anxiety, and hence may share the same psychological, biological or neural underpinnings. In light of the available literature, this represents the first experimental investigation of the biological activity of plants specifically in the perspective of their use in treating a culture-bound syndrome.
KW - Adiantum latifolium Lam.
KW - Adiantum tetraphyllum Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd.
KW - Anxiety and fear
KW - Lygodium heterodoxum Kunze
KW - Selaginella aff. stellata Spring
KW - Susto
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33845976006&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jep.2006.08.004
DO - 10.1016/j.jep.2006.08.004
M3 - Article
C2 - 17071033
AN - SCOPUS:33845976006
SN - 0378-8741
VL - 109
SP - 380
EP - 387
JO - Journal of Ethnopharmacology
JF - Journal of Ethnopharmacology
IS - 3
ER -