Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a multifactorial disorder, which is neuropathologically identified by age-dependent neurodegeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. Development of symptomatic treatments has been partly successful for PD research, but there remain a number of inadequacies in therapeutic strategies for the disease. The pathogenesis of PD remains intricate, and the present anti-PD treatments appears to be clinically insufficient. Comprehensive research on discovery of novel drug candidates has demonstrated that natural products, such as medicinal herbs, plant extracts, and their secondary metabolites, have great potential as therapeutics with neuroprotective activity in PD. Recent preclinical studies suggest that a number of herbal medicines and their bioactive ingredients can be developed into optimum pharmaceuticals for treating PD. In many countries, traditional herbal medicines are used to prevent or treat neurodegenerative disorders, and some have been developed as nutraceuticals or functional foods. Here we focus on recent advances of the evidence-linked neuroprotective activity of bioactive ingredients of herbal origin in cellular and animal models of PD research.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic neurological disorder, characterized by a selective loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN) of ventral midbrain area, causing a subsequent reduction of dopamine (DA) levels in the striatum
Herbal medicines have been known to possess a combination of bioactive components which might target different pathomechanisms in neurodegenerative diseases
There are more than 120 traditional medicines being used for therapy of central nervous system (CNS) disorders in Asian countries, lack of their quality control data and safety in consumption across the population limits their use in modern world of medicines
Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic neurological disorder, characterized by a selective loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN) of ventral midbrain area, causing a subsequent reduction of dopamine (DA) levels in the striatum. The three main strategic developments in drug discovery that have advanced the progress in therapeutic management of PD patients have focused on the alleviation of motor symptoms by the use of dopaminergic mimetics, the development of novel nondopaminergic drugs for symptomatic improvement, and lastly, the discovery of neuroprotective compounds that have disease modifying effects in PD [2]. In Chinese traditional medicine, 22,500 medicinal herbs are in use throughout China, of which only a few have been successfully investigated in animal experiments or clinical trials for potential development into herbal formulations for treating PD [13]. We have focused on recent advances in the research of herbal medicines and their bioactive ingredients used in animal and cellular neurotoxic models of PD, so as to facilitate future basic and clinical investigations
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