Plant-Derived Bioactive Compounds as Potential Therapeutics in Neurodegenerative Diseases
Plant-Derived Bioactive Compounds as Potential Therapeutics in Neurodegenerative Diseases
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Original abstract
Plant-derived bioactive compounds have provided an attractive and versatile approach to address the challenge of neurodegenerative diseases that remain a critical global health concern due to progressive progression and lack of therapeutic treatment. These diseases include Alzheimer, Parkinson, and Huntington and are characterized by complex pathologies and include oxidative stress, abnormal protein aggregation, mitochondrial dysfunction, neuroinflammation, and neuronal apoptosis that eventually lead to impaired cognition, mobility, and general neurobiological functioning. The traditional pharmacological treatment methods mainly offer relief in the form of symptoms and have a minimal effect of slowing down the process of disease, which is why new forms of treatment are urgently needed. The recent pharmacological studies have progressively emphasized the strong medicinal potential of plant bioactive components, including polyphenols, alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenoids, and polysaccharides. These constituents show a biomolecular range of neuroprotective effects such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic, anti-cholinesterase as well as anti-aggregation which are direct antagonists of the pathological processes of neurodegeneration. Consistently, both preclinical in vitro and in vivo experiments reveal that these secondary metabolites are capable of alleviating neuronal damage through the effect of modulating cellular signalling pathways, reactive oxygen species, supporting mitochondrial activity, and inhibition of apoptotic cascades. Bacosides (derived with Bacopa monnieri), acteoside, and pinocembrin have been found to, respectively, inhibit neuronal apoptosis, confer anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties critical to neuroprotection. The growing body of evidence that functional synergy exists between plant-derived compounds and current pharmacotherapies indicates that combination strategies could be used to improve therapeutic outcomes and elevate clinical outcomes.