Simple determination of riluzole in rat brain by high-performance liquid chromatography and spectrophotometric detection

A simple method was developed for separation and quantification of riluzole in rat brain. The analyses were performed by high-performance liquid chromatography using a C18 reversed-phase column (Hypersil ODS) with UV detection at 264 nm. The mobile phase consisted of methanol–water containing 1% triethylamine adjusted with orthophosphoric acid to pH 3.2. The retention time was 8.6 min. A simple liquid–liquid extraction with ethyl acetate was used to obtain riluzole from brain samples. The limit of quantification was 10 ng/g. The recovery was about 80%. The relationship between peak areas and concentrations was linear over the range between 0.01 and 0.8 μg/g, with r2 value over 0.99. The assay provided good reproducibility and accuracy and proved to be suitable for pharmacokinetic studies of riluzole.