Some Pharmacological Studies with Tiliacorine, a Diphenylbisbenzylisoquinoline Alkaloid from Tiliacora racemosa

Tiliacora racemosa Colebr. belonging to the family Menispermaceae is the biggest store-house of diphenyl bisbenzylisoquinoline (DBBI) alkaloids. Exhaustive chemical processing of the root of T. racemosa by the application of modern separation techniques yielded a DBBI alkaloid which was identified as tiliacorine using sophisticated spectroscopic methods (UV, IR, $1^H-NMR$, Mass). Tiliacorine potentiated the sleeping time induced by standard hypnotics viz. chlorpromazine (CPZ), pentobarbitone (PB) and diazepam (DZ) in a dose dependent manner. Tiliacorine potentiated the analgesic action of standard analgesic agents viz., morphine and meperidine. It was also found to possess anti convulsive activity in the strychnine induced convulsion model.