Manuscript Click here to view linked References 1 2 3 4 1 Letter to the Editor 5 6 7 8 2 Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium L.) – a curious plant with both 9 10 11 12 3 neurotoxic and neuroprotective properties? 13 14 15 4 16 17 5 Re: "Neuroprotective effect of Artemisia absinthium L. on focal ischemia and 18 19 20 6 reperfusion-induced cerebral injury" by Bora and Sharma (J. Ethnopharmacol 2010;in press) 21 22 7 23 24 8 Dirk W. Lachenmeier* 25 26 27 9 Chemisches und Veterinäruntersuchungsamt (CVUA) Karlsruhe 28 2910 Weissenburger Strasse 3 30 3111 D-76187 Karlsruhe, Germany 32 3312 34 35 3613 * Corresponding author. 37 3814 Tel.: +49-721-926-5434; fax: +49-721-926-5539. 39 4015 E-mail address:
[email protected] (D.W. Lachenmeier) 41 4216 43 44 45 4617 47 48 49 5018 51 52 53 5419 55 56 5720 Conflicts of Interest: None declared. 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 1 65 1 2 321 Abstract 4 5 622 The medical use of the wormwood plant Artemisia absinthium L. dates back to at least Roman times, 7 8 923 while during the last century this tradition was seemingly on the decline due to fears of absinthism, a 10 1124 syndrome allegedly caused by the wormwood-flavoured spirit absinthe and more specifically as a result 12 13 1425 of thujone, a monoterpene ketone often present in the essential oil of wormwood. If threshold 15 1626 concentrations are exceeded, thujone does in fact exhibit neurotoxic properties leading to dose- 17 18 1927 dependent tonic-clonic seizures in animals, likely caused by GABA type A receptor modulation.