인지저하 개선과 치매 예방에 작용하는 한약의 약리 기전

Pharmacological Mechanisms of Herbal Medicine in Improving Cognitive Decline and Preventing Dementia

Background: Current dementia treatments primarily aim to slow progression rather than cure, with many unmet needs, including side effects. Herbal medicine has shown potential for improving cognitive function and preventing dementia. Method: A search was conducted in the PubMed database up to November 2023 for 13 dementia onset mechanisms and keywords ‘cognition, dementia’, and ‘herbal medicine’. Irrelevant studies, reviews, and those without accessible full texts were excluded. Results: Out of 236 studies found, 75 were selected after excluding 161 irrelevant ones. Herbal medicine impacted nine out of the thirteen searched dementia onset mechanisms, including ‘Mitochondrial dysfunction, Cellular senescence, Autophagy, Inflammation, Lipid dysregulation, Beta-amyloid, Tau, Neurofibrillary tangles, Neuron synapse dysfunction, Neuroprotection’. Conclusion: Herbal medicine may offer integrative therapeutic approaches beyond the existing dementia treatments focused on increasing acetylcholine and reducing neurotoxicity. It is particularly promising in early cognitive impairment stages, potentially improving cognitive functions and preventing progression to dementia when considering the mechanisms of dementia.