title: The treatment of Alzheimer's disease using Chinese medicinal plants: from disease models to potential clinical applications.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by the sustained higher nervous disorders of the activities and functions of the brain. Due to its heavy burden on society and the patients' families, it is urgent to review the treatments for AD to provide basic data for further research and new drug development. Among these treatments, Chinese Material Medica (CMM) has been traditionally clinical used in China to treat AD for a long time with obvious efficacy. With the further research reports of CMM, new therapeutic materials may be recovered from troves of CMM. However, So far, little or no review work has been reported to conclude anti-AD drugs from CMM in literature. Therefore, a systematic introduction of CMM anti-AD research progress is of great importance and necessity. This paper strives to systematically describe the progress of CMM in the treatment of AD, and lays a basis data for anti-AD drug development from CMM, and provides the essential theoretical support for the further development and utilization of CMM resources through a more comprehensive research of the variety of databases regarding CMM anti-AD effects reports.
  
  
  METHODS
  Literature survey was performed via electronic search (SciFinder®, Pubmed®, Google Scholar and Web of Science) on papers and patents and by systematic research in ethnopharmacological literature at various university libraries.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This review mainly introduces the current research on the Chinese Material Medica (CMM) theoretical research on Alzheimer's disease (AD), anti-AD active constituent of CMM, anti-AD effects on AD models, anti-AD mechanism of CMM, and anti-AD effect of CMM formula.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Scholars around the world have made studies on the anti-AD molecular mechanism of CMM from different pathways, and have made substantial progress. The progress not only enriched the anti-AD theory of CMM, but also provided clinical practical significance and development prospects in using CMM to treat AD. Western pure drugs cannot replace the advantages of CMM in the anti-AD aspect. Therefore, in the near future, the development of CMM anti-AD drugs with a more clearly role and practical data will be a major trend in the field of AD drug development, and it will promote the use of CMM.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education, Department of Pharmacology, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin 150040, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Su
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education, Department of Pharmacology, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin 150040, China. Electronic address: qhwang668@sina.com.
authors.forename: Qiuhong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education, Department of Pharmacology, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin 150040, China.
authors.forename: Changfu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Centre for Complementary Medicine Research, University of Western Sydney, NSW 2560, Australia; Faculty of Pharmacy, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Kelvin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education, Department of Pharmacology, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin 150040, China.
authors.forename: Yanping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education, Department of Pharmacology, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin 150040, China. Electronic address: hxkuang@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Haixue
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kuang
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology; D000818:Animals; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D015195:Drug Design; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D020834:Ethnopharmacology; D006801:Humans; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional / Q000379:methods*; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal
keywords: Alzheimer's disease; Anti-Alzheimer's disease effect; Anti-Alzheimer's disease ingredient; Chinese Materia Medica; Review