Depression is affecting around 5% of the population. Furthermore, sleep deprivation causes depression in large number of people mainly working in night shifts like IT professionals and during exam periods for students. In the traditional systems of medicine, many plants and formulations have been used to treat depression for thousands of years. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the antidepressant activity of methanolic extract of Nardostachys jatamansi DC by forced swim test, tail suspension test and locomotor activity in inbred male Swiss Albino mice weighing 25-30g. The efficacy of the extract (200 and 400 mg/kg, p.o) was compared with the standard drug imipramine (10mg/kg, p.o) on normal and sleep deprived mice. Drugs were administered for 10 days in normal mice groups and the other groups were subjected to 24 hours sleep deprivation by using multiple platforms on 9th day and last dose was given 1 hour before experiment on 10th day. Duration of immobility was noted in both the models. MENJ (200 and 400 mg/kg, p.o) produced significant (P<0.001) antidepressant like effect in normal and sleep deprived mice in both TST and FST and their efficacies were found to be comparable to imipramine (10 mg/kg, p.o). It did not show any significant change in locomotor functions of mice as compared to normal control. However, it significantly (P<0.01) improves the locomotor activity in case of sleep deprivation which is comparable to normal control. This finding suggests that MENJ has dose dependent antidepressant activity and can also be used in patients suffering from depression due to sleep disturbances.
