Anti-Ulcer Effect of Risperidone in Rats

Risperidone is a second-generation atypical antipsychotic drug currently used for the management of psychosis in schizophrenia, delusional psychosis and psychotic depression an action ascribed to its being a dopamine antagonist possessing anti-serotonergic, anti-adrenergic and anti-histaminergic properties. However, there are indications that risperidone has gastroprotective effect. Thus this study was carried out to examine the effect of risperidone on stress-induced and indomethacin-induced ulcers in the rats. Rats were treated with risperidone (0.1mg/kg, 0.3mg/kg and 0.5mg/kg) orally once daily for 21 days before assessing for ulcer using water immersion restraint stress (WIRS), starvation and indomethacin-induced ulcer models. Risperidone caused a significant dose-dependent reduction in gastric ulcer scores [0.1mg/kg (3.5±0.2), 0.3mg/kg (1.9±0.3), 0.5mg/kg (1.2±0.2)] compared with control (5.6±0.3) in WIRS; [0.1mg/kg (4.0 ±0.3), 0.3mg/kg (2.3±0.2), 0.5mg/kg (1.8±0.2)] compared with control (6.1 ± 0.3) in starvation and [0.1mg/kg (4.9±0.3), 0.3 mg/kg (2.0±0.2), 0.5 mg/kg (1.3±0.2)] compared with control (6.4±0.4) in indomethacin-induced ulcer models. These findings suggest that risperidone has gastric anti-ulcer property. However, more detailed studies are necessary to confirm the relevance of this finding and its implications in clinical settings.Keywords: risperidone, gastric ulcer, starvation, stress