Drosophila parabss Flies as a Screening Model for Traditional Medicine: Anticonvulsant Effects of Annona senegalensis

Epilepsy is among the most common serious neurological disorders and affects around 50 million people worldwide, 80% of which live in developing countries. Despite introduction several new Anti-Epileptic Drugs (AEDs) last two decades, one third treated patients have seizures refractory to pharmacotherapy. This highlights need develop treatments with drugs targeting alternative seizure-induction mechanisms. Traditional medicine (TM) used for treatment epilepsy many countries could constitute an affordable accessible AEDs, but a lack pre-clinical clinical testing has so far prevented its wider acceptance worldwide. In this study we Drosophila melanogaster paralytic bangsensitive (para bss ) mutants as model epileptic seizure screening tested, first time, anti-seizure effect non-commercial AED. We evaluated African custard-apple, Annona senegalensis , commonly TM rural Africa, compared it classical AED phenytoin. Our results showed that stem bark extract from A. was significantly more effective than leaf similar phenytoin prevention control seizure-like behavior. These support constitutes robust animal potential value intractable epilepsy.