Plants with traditional uses and activities, relevant to the management of Alzheimer's disease and other cognitive disorders

Abstract

In traditional practices of medicine, numerous plants have been used to treat cognitive disorders, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other memory related disorders. An ethnopharmacological approach has provided leads to identifying potential new drugs from plant sources, including those for memory disorders. There are numerous drugs available in Western medicine that have been directly isolated from plants, or are derived from templates of compounds from plant sources. For example, some alkaloids from plant sources have been investigated for their potential in AD therapy, and are now in clinical use (e.g. galantamine from Galanthus nivalis L. is used in the United Kingdom). Various other plant species have shown favourable effects in AD, or pharmacological activities indicating the potential for use in AD therapy. This article reviews some of the plants and their active constituents that have been used in traditional medicine, including Ayurvedic, Chinese, European and Japanese medicine, for their reputed cognitive-enhancing and antidementia effects. Plants and their constituents with pharmacological activities that may be relevant to the treatment of cognitive disorders, including enhancement of cholinergic function in the central nervous system, anti-cholinesterase (anti-ChE), antiinflammatory, antioxidant and oestrogenic effects, are discussed.

Localization of the noncovalent binding site between amyloid-β-peptide and oleuropein using electrospray ionization FT-ICR mass spectrometry

“…Digestion with trypsin yielded the four expected A␤ fragments: [1][2][3][4][5], [6 -16], [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28], and [29 -40] following cleavage after arginine (R) or lysine (K) residues (Table 2), as well as partially cleaved fragments ( Table 3). The soft ESI ionization also enabled the detection of noncovalent interactions between sequential and nonsequential fragments.…”

“…Noncovalent interactions of peptide fragments with OE, added before digestion, were detected for the [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] fragment of A␤ (Figure 2) and the partially cleaved peptide fragments [6 -28] and [6 -40]. In addition, noncovalent complexes of OE with the [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] fragment, derived from the chymotryptic activity of the enzyme, was also detected.…”

“…Moreover, OE and its metabolites have been shown to be potent against contemporary diseases, such as HIV [20,21] and osteoporosis [22,23]. Interestingly, in vitro [24] and epidemiological [25] studies demonstrated the positive impact of polyphenols on the onset of age-related disorders, such as dementia [26,27].It is regarded that the pathophysiology of AD is tangled and many theories have been proposed to illumine its mechanism. Free radical reactions and oxidative stress [28,29], as well as unregulated immune response [30,31], are believed to be key factors for the pathogenesis of AD, whereas recent reports suggested a link between heart disease, hypercholesterolemia, and…”

“…Moreover, OE and its metabolites have been shown to be potent against contemporary diseases, such as HIV [20,21] and osteoporosis [22,23]. Interestingly, in vitro [24] and epidemiological [25] studies demonstrated the positive impact of polyphenols on the onset of age-related disorders, such as dementia [26,27].…”

“…This, in conjunction with the ability of OE to interact with A␤, thus blocking the peptide in a nontoxic conformation and inhibiting its aggregation, may introduce an ideal regime against its neurotoxicity. However, natural extracts and plants containing antioxidants and phytoestrogens have been involved in the management of cognitive disorders [26], such as AD, and against A␤-induced toxicity.…”