Dioscorea dumetorum(Bitter yam) is one of the most popular cultivated stem tuber crop in Africa, yet the traditional use of this crop as medicinal plant has not been thoroughly investigated. Hence, the needs to investigate its analgesic activities so as to validates its uses in traditional medicine. This study aimed to assess the analgesic activity of D. dumetorum tuber extract in rats. Twenty healthy wister rats will be used. The rats will be divided into five group (A-E), four rats in each group. The rats will be place on a confined hot plate maintain at 55°C. Time for the respond to the thermal stimulus (usually jumping) will be recorded as the latency (in seconds). Rats in group B, C and D will be giving the extract of D. dumetorum orally after 12 hours fast .The doses will be 50, 100 and 200g/kg for the rats in group B, C and D respectively while the rats in group A and E will be administer with doses of normal saline (10mL/kg) and indomethacin (5mg/kg) respectively. The mean latency and standard error of mean (SEM) will be determine for each group. The result will be analyze using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) and P value < 0.05 will be consider as significant. Pain is one of the most common reason people seek medical attention. It can be defined as an undesirable physical or emotional experience and classified as acute or chronic pain. Treatment for chronic pain is a major public health problem due to the recurrent use of available analgesic drugs that have undesirable side effect (Ballantyne, 2005). Research in pain management and drug addiction are focused on natural products. Compounds have been produced from natural substances, and synthetic compounds based totally on natural pharmacophores have been introduced in the market (McCurdy and Scully, 2005). For thousands of years, various forms of natural products have been used for treating pain disorders, such as the use of opium, extracted from Papaver soniferum L. Since the nineteenth century, bioactive compounds began to be isolated and identified. Then, the action of such molecules was enhanced, such as salicin, a compound extracted from the bark of the white willow tree, Salix alba L., from which the acetylsalicylic acid is produced (McCurdy and Scully, 2005). Whereas morphine remains as the most potent analgesic drug, which was first isolated in 1803 by Friedrich Sertürner (Lipp, 2011)

1. DEPARTMENT OF PLANT SCIENCE AND BIOTECHNOLOGY,
FACULTY OF SCIENCE,
ADEKUNLE AJASIN UNIVERSITY, AKUNGBA AKOKO,
ONDO STATE.
SEMINAR PRESENTATION
ON
ANALGESIC ACTIVITY OF Dioscorea dumetorum IN RATS
BY
AWE OLUBUNMI GBENGA
MATRIC NO: 160410056

2. OUTLINES
 INTRODUCTION
 JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY
 AIM OF THE STUDY
 MATERIALS AND METHODS
 EXPECTED CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE

3. INTRODUCTION
 Analgesic simply refers to medication that provides relief from pain without putting one to sleep or
making one to lose consciousness.
 The World Health Organization reported that 80% of the emerging world population depends on
traditional medicine for therapy.
 Medicinal plants in Nigeria were considered by several researchers to provide an essential property
of natural wealth of the country.
 Dioscorea dumetorum belongs to the family of Dioscoreaceae and it’s known as bitter yam or three
leaved yam (trifoliate), usually found in Africa and cultivated in Nigeria. D. dumetorum is known
as "Esuru" among the Yorubas.
 Dioscorea dumetorum is of two kinds; edible and non-edible. The edible kind is cultivated while
the non-edible type grows wild but is highly used in traditional medicine; in treatment of some
illnesses such as diabetes mellitus, schistosomiasis, jaundice and malaria (Ogbunugafor et al.,
2014, Sonibare et al., 2012, Fasanu et al., 2013).

4. SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION of Dioscorea dumetorum
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Liliopsida
Order: Liliales
Family: Dioscoreacaea
Genus: Dioscorea
Species: D. dumetorum

5. JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY
Studies have shown that recent developments in pain
therapies such as the use of morphine, aspirin and non-
steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs cause physical
dependency, tolerance, addiction and gastrointestinal
disorders. For that, the discovery of other alternatives to
treat pain is crucial.
Herbal therapy could be an interesting option for the
treatment of different painful conditions especially the
chronic pains.

6. AIM OF THE STUDY
 This study aimed to assess the analgesic activity in the tuber of Dioscorea
dumetorum aqueous extract by using hot plate method.

7. MATERIALS AND METHODS
 The plant tuber will be purchased, identified and authenticated;
 Plant sample will be oven-dried and powdered;
 Water will be used as solvent for extraction and the filtrate will be lyophilized to get dried powder;
 Animals (20) will be grouped into five (5) consisting of four (4) animals each; Groups A and E will be administered
with normal saline (10 ml/kg) and indomethacin (5 mg/kg) respectively while those in groups B, C and D will
receive 50, 100 and 200 mg/kg of D. dumetorum aqueous extract respectively;
 Animals will be placed on a confined hot plate maintained at 55°C, elapsed time between placement of the animal
on the hot plate and the occurrence of the licking of the hind paws, shaking, or jumping off from the surface will be
recorded as response latency in seconds;
 Only rats that show initial nociceptive response within 30 seconds will be selected and used for the study;
 The mean latency and standard error of mean (SEM) will be determined for each group and the data will be
statistically analyzed.

8. EXPECTED CONTRIBUTION TO
KNOWLEDGE
• This study is expected to establish the analgesic effect of D.
dumetorum in Wistar rats and thus will justify the local use of the plant
in treatment of pains.

9. EXPERIMENT
IN
PROGRESS

10. THANK
S
FOR
LISTEN
ING