Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Herb-Derived Autophagy Enhancers in Neurodegenerative Diseases


Publishing date
01 Oct 2021
Status
Closed
Submission deadline
04 Jun 2021

1University of Allahabad, Prayagraj, India

2University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

This issue is now closed for submissions.

Herb-Derived Autophagy Enhancers in Neurodegenerative Diseases

This issue is now closed for submissions.

Description

The accumulation of aberrant proteins and inclusion bodies are hallmarks of most neurodegenerative diseases (NDs). Consequently, these aggregates within neurons lead to toxic effects, overproduction of reactive oxygen species, and oxidative stress. Autophagy is a significant intracellular mechanism that removes damaged organelles and misfolded proteins in order to maintain cell homeostasis. Excessive or insufficient autophagic activity in neurons leads to altered homeostasis and influences their survival rate, causing neurodegeneration. Autophagic impairment is one of the most common processes observed in several NDs, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), Huntington’s disease (HD), and multiple sclerosis (MS). Autophagy is a promising field of study with many aspects that remain uninvestigated.

Nowadays, autophagy enhancers have shown promise in the effective treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Most importantly, herb-derived autophagic enhancers have the potential capability to prevent progressive degeneration in the above-mentioned NDs. Chinese herbal medicine and Indian herbal medicine have shown powerful autophagic enhancing activity. Paeoniflorin, cinnamic acid, trehalose, and resveratrol are some of the most common herb-derived autophagic enhancers. These enhancers effectively modulate the autophagic pathways in different NDs, however, research into the mechanism of action behind the autophagy enhancing activity of these herb-derived compounds is in its preliminary stages. Therefore, there is a strong need to explore the autophagic enhancing activity of herb-derived compounds, and the mechanism of action behind this, in different NDs.

The aim of this Special Issue is to attract researchers working on herbal plants and their derived compounds for use in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Herb-derived autophagy enhancers show a similar kind of activity, with minimal side effects, as compared to pure chemical compounds, which indicates their potential. The major challenge in this Special Issue is to discover suitable herb-derived compounds with maximum autophagy enhancing activity. We welcome original articles from researchers worldwide to explore herb-derived autophagy enhancers derived from their indigenous herbal plants. We also welcome review articles that show the potential of different herb-derived autophagic enhancers in different NDs. Screening of particular herb-derived compounds that show the maximum impact on different NDs is very crucial. Therefore, we also welcome articles comparing the autophagy enhancing activity of different herb-derived compounds.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

  • Screening of herb-derived compounds showing autophagy enhancing activity
  • Comparison of autophagy enhancing activity of different herb-derived compounds in different neurodegenerative diseases
  • Autophagy enhancing activity of herb-derived compounds in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease
  • Herb-derived compounds showing autophagy enhancing activity in multiple sclerosis
  • Identification of herb-derived compounds for their autophagy enhancing activity in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
  • Herb-derived compounds showing autophagy enhancing activity in prion diseases
  • Herb-derived compounds showing autophagy enhancing activity in motor neuron disease
Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
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