The effect of ethanol extract of Centella asiatica on tactile motility and body length of hypoxic larval zebrafish

The study aimed to know antioxidant effect of Centella asiatica (CA) (L) urban which was assumed can protect neuron cells from free radicals also could act as neuro-protectant agent in hypoxic growing brain. Hypoxia may affect growth process, motoric and sensory impairment which can be seen in shorter body length and impairment of tactile motility. This research was true experimental study with randomized post test only control group, which used zebrafish divided into healthy negative control, positive control and CA treatment group with 1.25; 2.5; and 5 μg/ ml doses respectively. Nitrogen was induced to lower the oxygen level (4.3 mgO2/L). Body length and tactile motility then measured in 3, 6, and 9 days post fertilization. The results of this study found a significant difference between the day 9 of body length in negative and positive control groups (p= 0.047 post-hoc Tukey test) and CA treatment, whether the 1.25 μg/ ml in day 3 or 2.5 and 5 μg/ ml can prevent this reduction compared to positive control group in day 6 (p=0,008, p=0.032, post-hoc Tukey test) and day 9 post fertilization (p=0.008, p=0.032, post-hoc Tukey test) respectively. Interestingly there is no difference found in tactile response between each group. It can be concluded that hypoxic condition caused reduction of body length and 2.5 and 5 μg/ ml of CA treatment can attenuate this reduction, even though there was no difference in tactile motility.