ABSTRACT
Population ageing is one of humanity’s greatest challenges. World Health Organization (WHO) projections indicate that by 2050, there will be a total of about 2 billion people over the age of 60. Given the expected dramatic increase in the incidence and prevalence of many age-related neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), the identi˜cation of successful prevention and treatment strategies is critical. However, the available therapeutic strategies can only modestly improve symptoms and cannot cure or prevent the disease progression. Currently, the major obstacle to the development of new therapies is our inadequate knowledge of the etiology of the NDs. Nevertheless, increasing evidence suggest that NDs, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD), likely represent a syndrome instead of a single disorder with the same primary cause in all cases. Several common abnormalities have been observed in the pathogenesis of NDs, which include oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, protein aggregation and misfolding, in´ammation, excitotoxicity, as well as apoptosis (Halliwell 1992; Halliwell 2001; Liu and Hong 2003; Lee et al. 2009; Yacoubian and Standaert 2009). These pathogenic alterations likely act synergistically through complex interactions to promote neurodegeneration. Thus, it becomes evident that syndromes, such as AD and PD, will require multi-target drug therapy to address the varied pathological aspects of the disease. Moreover, studies have indicated that bi-or
14.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 497 14.2 Huperzia serrata and Huperzine A .............................................................. 498 14.3 Caulis Sinomenii and Sinomenine ...............................................................504 14.4 Amaryllidaceae Family and Galanthamine .................................................506 14.5 Panax ginseng and Ginsenosides Rg1 and Rb1 ............................................508 14.6 Apium graveolens and L-NBP ...................................................................... 510 14.7 Other Active Principles from Chinese Herbs ............................................... 512 14.8 Conclusions ................................................................................................... 514 Acknowledgments .................................................................................................. 514 References .............................................................................................................. 514
multifunctional compounds might provide greater symptomatic ef˜cacy as potential anti-ND drugs than single-target compound (Weinreb et al. 2009).
