In vivo and in vitro experimental models to investigate the anti inflammatory activity of herbal extracts Imtiyaz Ansari1 VanitaKanase2 Mateen Sayed3 Inayat Kabir 1Department of pharmacology ABSTRACT The article reviews the studies on anti inflammatory effects of herbal extracts with emphasis on different experimental models that are frequently used to test the in vivo anti inflammatory activity of herbal components Oedema granuloma and arthritis models are used to test the anti inflammatory activity of plant extracts whereas formalin or acetic acid induced writhing test and hot plate methods are the most repeatedly used to evaluate anti nociceptive potentials of the herbal extracts Although adjuvant induced and collagen induced arthritis models are also quite efficient they have been used seldom to evaluate anti inflammatory tendencies of the herbs Here we suggest a double positive reference model using both steroid and non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs at the same time instead of using only one of the either Key Words Anti Inflammatory Herbal Extracts Experimental models