Gelsemine, an alkaloid from the Chinese herb Gelsemium elegans, is effective in mitigating chronic pain. Antinociceptive and hypnotic effects.
Gelsemine is an effective agent for treatment of both neuropathic pain and sleep disturbance in partial sciatic nerve ligation (PSNL) mice. Gelsemine (4 mg/kg) exerts analgesic effects on PSNL-induced mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia. In PSNL mice, Gelsemine (2 and 4 mg/kg) increases the mechanical threshold for 4 h and prolonged the thermal latencies for 3 h. Furthermore, Gelsemine (4 mg/kg, administered at 6:30 AM) increases non-rapid eye movement (non-REM, NREM) sleep, decreases wakefulness, but does not affect rapid eye movement (REM) sleep during the first 3 h in PSNL mice[1]. Immunohistochemical study shows that PSNL increases c-Fos expression in the neurons of the anterior cingulate cortex, and Gelsemine (4 mg/kg) decreases c-Fos expression by 58%[1].
References:
[1]. Wu YE, et al. Gelsemine alleviates both neuropathic pain and sleep disturbance in partial sciatic nerve ligation mice. Acta Pharmacol Sin. 2015 Nov;36(11):1308-17.