brain sciences Review Indian Medicinal Herbs and Formulations for Alzheimer’s Disease, from Traditional Knowledge to Scientific Assessment Jogender Mehla 1,*, Pooja Gupta 2,*, Monika Pahuja 3, Deepti Diwan 1 and Diksha Diksha 2 1 Department of Neurological Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA;
[email protected] 2 Department of Pharmacology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029, India;
[email protected] 3 Division of Basic Medical Sciences, Indian Council of Medical Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, V. Ramalingaswamy Bhawan, New Delhi 110029, India;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] (J.M.);
[email protected] (P.G.) Received: 17 October 2020; Accepted: 7 December 2020; Published: 10 December 2020 Abstract: Cognitive impairment, associated with ageing, stress, hypertension and various neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy, is a major health issue. The present review focuses on Alzheimer’s disease (AD), since it is the most important cause of cognitive impairment. It is characterized by progressive memory loss, language deficits, depression, agitation, mood disturbances and psychosis. Although the hallmarks of AD are cholinergic dysfunction, β-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangle formation, it is also associated with derangement of other neurotransmitters, elevated levels of advanced glycation end products, oxidative damage, neuroinflammation, genetic and environmental factors. On one hand, this complex etiopathology makes a response to commonly used drugs such as donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine and memantine less predictable and often unsatisfactory. On the other hand, it supports the use of herbal medicines due to their nonspecific antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity and specific cholinesterase inhibitory activity.