Determination of ligustilide in the brains of freely moving rats using microdialysis coupled with ultra performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry.

In this paper, microdialysis combined with ultra performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) was applied for the determination of ligustilide in freely moving rats' brain. The extracellular unbound ligustilide could be detected in rat brain within the first time interval (0-20 min) after nasal administration but not after oral administration. This result showed that ligustilide could quickly enter the brain after nasal administration; which implied that ligustilide may have a rapid onset of action. This work demonstrated the potential application of microdialysis combined with UPLC-MS in pharmacokinetic studies. Furthermore, the advantage that fewer animals used in the microdialysis experiment was confirmed.