Caffeine is the most commonly used psychoactive substance throughout the world. It is found in coffee, black tea, and chocolate, as it is produced naturally in the beans and leaves of the plants used to manufacture these products. This study aimed to make a survey study among children 2-11 years in some Tripoli, Libya schools to determine caffeine concentration in number of beverages and foods consumed by studied children. About 313 copies of the questionnaire were distributed to students to be filled by their parents. Caffeine was extracted from samples using dichloromethane. Purity of isolated caffeine was estimated by using TLC method.Quantitative analysis of caffeine was performed by using a UV-Visible spectrophotometer. Chocolate biscuits, chocolate cake, cocoa milk and chocolate ice cream were the highest consumed products among the studied children (81%, 79%, 67% and 63% respectively). The highest side effects of caffeine consumption was hyperactivity was the highest side effect in children (76%). Some children also suffered from severe side effects such as panic attack (14%). Naseem ice cream sample showed the highest caffeine content (28 mg/serving) among solid samples.Whereas in the beverages, energy drink samples Red pull, XIR and Shark were 268, 262 and 250 mg/serving respectively. In conclusion, there was excessive consumption of caffeine among the studied group of children and some of them showed side effects and even severe side effects. Variety of tested foods and beverages under the study contained uncontrolled concentrations of caffeine. In addition, chocolate milk (Al Rayhan), contained no caffeine. arabic 15 English 97
Sakina S. Saadawi, Khairi A. Alennabi, AMAL .A ABOALLA AMMAR, , , ٍSuhera Mehemed Abdulsalam Aburawi(9-2019)

Aims: This article aimed to study the effect of different caffeine concentrations on behaviour and motor activity of mice. Place and Duration of Study: This study took place in Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Tripoli, and was conducted between 2017 to 2018. Methodology: The experiment was carried out using 24 male mice (25-30 gm). Plus maze was used for screening antianxiety effect of caffeine. While swimming maze was used to test the antidepressant effect. Descriptive statistics was performed using SPSS (version 22), followed by one sample Kolmogorov-Simirnov test. One-Way ANOVA was applied to compare between groups and Post Hoc test (LSD). Results: At a dose of 100 mg/kg, caffeine produce significant decrease in the duration of immobility using forced swimming maze; while the lower (25 mg/kg) and the higher (200 mg/kg) doses did not produce any changes compared to the control. In plus maze, Caffeine decreases the anxiety measure at the dose used of 100 mg/kg; but did not change the anxiety measure when lower (25 mg/kg) or higher (200 mg/kg) doses used compared to the control. The spontaneous motor activity was decreased significantly after administration of the higher dose of 200 mg/kg; the lower dose (25 mg/kg) showed insignificant increase, while the dose of 100 mg/kg produce insignificant decrease in the spontaneous motor activity. Conclusion: Caffeine has dose dependent effect, in a dose 100 mg/kg it produce anxiolytic and antidepressant like action, while lower (25 mg/kg) and higher (200 mg/kg) doses did not show any changes. Caffeine also produce dose dependent decrease in the spontaneous motor activity, this indicate that caffeine produce CNS depression with higher doses. arabic 12 English 73
Sakina S. Saadawi, Khairi A. Alennabi, Sumaya Baayo, Amera Fares, Najwa Alosta, Suher M. Aburawi(3-2020)

مرض الاكتئاب هو عبارة عن اضطراب عقلى واسع الانتشار يصيب الملايين من الاشخاص حول العالم وهو احدالاسباب المهمة المؤدية للإعاقة في جميع أنحاء العالم و في أسوأ حالاته يمكن أن يؤدي إلى الانتحار, والوفاة المأساوية المرتبطة بفقدان نحو 850 ألف شخص سنويا. هناك العديد من النواقل العصبية التى لها دور معروف في آليات الاكتئاب, والعقاقير المضادة له. ان المونوامين (السيروتونين والدوبامين والنورادرينالين) من المعروف أنها لها دور واضح فى هذا الشأن ولكن دور حمض غاما امينوبيمتاريك ( الجابا ) لا يزال غير واضح بشكل جيد, كما انه هناك العديد من الدراسات المعملية و السريرية التى أظهرت نتائج متضاربة بشأن الدور الحاسم للجابا في الاكتئاب. لذلك تقرر دراسة إذا كان الجابا له دور مباشر في علاج الاكتئاب من خلال دراسة التأثير المضاد للاكتئاب للأدوية المختلفة التي تنشط نظام الجابا بآليات مختلفة فى نموذج الكآبة المعترف به وهو (اختبار سباحة اليأس السلوكى) و هذه الأدوية تشمل؛ ( الدايازيبام ) وهو مضاد للقلق يعمل كمحور ايجابى للجابا عندما يتحد مع مستقبلات البنزوديازيبين، ( البرازولام ) الذى يعمل كمعزز لمستقبل (الجابا أ) ولديه ثأثير مزدوج كمضا د للقلق والاكتئاب عندما يتحد مع مستقبلات البنزوديازيبين، ( الزولبيدم ) وهو عقار منوم يستعمل على نطاق واسع و يعمل على مستقبل (الجابا أ) ويظهر جادبية عالية الى ( مستقبل الجابا أ الفرعى ( الفا1)، مضاد الصرع ( فيغاباترين) وهو مثبط غير رجعى وذو انتقائية عالية لئنزيم (غاما امينوبيمتاريك اسيد ترانزامينيز)، وأخيرا كان من الضرورى أن نشمل فى دراستنا مضاد الاكتئاب القياسى (الأميبرامين) الذى يعمل بتثبيط إعادة امتصاص ( السيروتونين، والنورادرينالين) من قبل الخلايا العصبية نتائج الدراسة المتصلة بقياس مدّة السكون الحركى فى اختبار سباحة اليأس السلوكى بعد 60 دقيقة من اعطاء الدواء اظهرت أن كل الأدوية المختارة المنشطة لنظام الجابا بآليات مختلفة ماعدا الجرعة العالية من ( البرازولام) قد انتجت زيادة مهمة فى مدّة السكون الحركى (مفعول مسبب للاكتئاب). هذه النتائج تدل على أن الناقل العصبى المثبط (الجابا)، ربما يكون قد سبب المفعول المشابه للاكتئاب نتجية تأثيره المسبب لنقص توفر المونوامين فى مناطق معينة من الدماغ، وللذلك استنتاجنا أن الزيادة فىنشاط نظام الجابا بالآليات المختلفة لن ينتج عنه مفعول مضاد للاكتئاب. Abstract: Depression is a common mental disorder affecting many millions of people worldwide and among the leading causes of disability worldwide. At its worst, depression can lead to suicide, a tragic fatality associated with the loss of about 850,000 lives every year. Many neurotransmitters have been suggested to be involved in the mechanisms of depression and antidepressant drugs. The role of the monoamines (serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine) is well recognized. On the other hand, the role of gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) is still not well recognized and many of the animal and clinical studies are showing conflicting findings regarding a crucial role of GABA in the pathophysiology of depression. Therefore, it was decided to examine if GABA has a direct role in depression by studying the antidepressant effect of different drugs that enhance GABA system by different mechanism by using a will established model of animal depression (forced swim test-FST). The drugs included diazepam an anxiolytic which acts as positive allosteric modulator of GABA when it binds to benzodiazepine receptors; alprazolam that act as GABAA receptor agonist with reported anxiolytic-antidepressant effect when it binds to benzodiazepine receptors; zolpidem which is a widely used hypnotic agent acting at the GABAA receptor and displays a high affinity to 1-GABAA receptor; the antiepileptic vigabatrin which is an irreversible and highly selective inhibitor of γ-aminobutyric acid transaminase; and finally imipramine was included as a standard antidepressant drug which acts by inhibiting the re-uptake of the neurotransmitters noradrenaline and serotonin. The results related to the measurement of the duration of immobility during FST after 60 min of drugs treatment showed that there was a tendency for all drugs (except for the high dose of alprazolam) to prolong the duration of immobility in dose dependent manner i.e. a depressant like action. These findings suggest that the neurotransmitter GABA might have produced a depressant like action by decreasing the availability of monoamines at certain brain areas. It was concluded therefore that increasing central GABAergic activity by different mechanisms will not result in an antidepressant activity.
نجوى أحمد الزحاف (2009)