Abstract:
Depression is a mood disorder in the form of deep depressing emotions or feelings.
Depressive disorders often occur in society and become the biggest contributor to
suicide. The main pharmacological therapy for depressive disorders is
antidepressant drugs. The Forced Swim Test (FST) method is a method commonly
used for antidepressant screening. This study aims to determine the antidepressant
activity of young areca seed methanol extract through the FST method in an acute
manner. The in vivo FST method was chosen because it can be a specific test to
measure behavior that is common for antidepressant treatments that have
pharmacological effects. The injection was carried out intraperitoneally 1 hour
before FST at a dose of 10 mg/kg and the control group was only injected with 0.9%
saline. The methanol extract of 10 mg/kg of young areca nut seeds has no potential
as an antidepressant as evidenced by the absence of a significant decrease in
immobility time compared to the control.
