Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex neurodegenerative disease, manifested by the progressive functional impairment of the midbrain nigral dopaminergic neurons. Due to the unclear underlying pathogenesis, disease-modifying drugs for PD remain elusive. In Asia, such as in China and India, herbal medicines have been used in the treatment of neurodegenerative disease for thousands of years, which recently attracted considerable attention because of the development of curative drugs for PD. In this review, we first summarized the pathogenic factors of PD including protein aggregation, mitochondrial dysfunction, ion accumulation, neuroinflammation, and oxidative stress, and the related recent advances. Secondly, we summarized 32 Chinese herbal medicines (belonging to 24 genera, such as Acanthopanax, Alpinia, and Astragalus), 22 Chinese traditional herbal formulations, and 3 Indian herbal medicines, of which the ethanol/water extraction or main bioactive compounds have been extensively investigated on PD models both in vitro and in vivo. We elaborately provided pictures of the representative herbs and the structural formula of the bioactive components (such as leutheroside B and astragaloside IV) of the herbal medicines. Also, we specified the potential targets of the bioactive compounds or extractions of herbs in view of the signaling pathways such as PI3K, NF-κB, and AMPK which are implicated in oxidative and inflammatory stress in neurons. We consider that this knowledge of herbal medicines or their bioactive components can be favorable for the development of disease-modifying drugs for PD.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease (PD), a long-term neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system (CNS) that mainly affects the motor system, was first described in “Essay on the Shaking Palsy” by James Parkinson in 1817 [1, 2]
It has been well documented that oxidative stress, impaired mitochondrial function, inflammation, apoptosis, dysfunction of proteolysis, and loss of neurotrophic factors are implicated in the pathogenesis of PD [7]
Various bioactivity components from herbal medicines have been demonstrated to possess antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective effects both in vitro and in vivo, indicating that they may exhibit therapeutic effects on PD
Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD), a long-term neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system (CNS) that mainly affects the motor system, was first described in “Essay on the Shaking Palsy” by James Parkinson in 1817 [1, 2]. In India, there has been a long history of using herbal medicines in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Withania somnifera, Mucuna pruriens, and Tinospora cordifolia. These lines of evidence indicated that herbal medicines may be promising candidates to obtain disease-modifying drugs for PD. The potential molecular targets of herbal medicine extracts have been extensively discovered, which will facilitate the identification of the bioactive compounds of the pharmacodynamic mechanisms of these herbs [15]. We will summarize the recent updates in studies that (1) elevate the effects of herbal medicine extracts on PD models and (2) explore the potential working mechanisms or targets of herb extracts or bioactive ingredients. We hope the knowledge may facilitate the development of disease-modifying drugs for PD
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