Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitory Effects of Medicinal Plants in Management of Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease is the most common progressive neurodegenerative disorder thateffects large population of society, especially elderly people. Environmental and/or genetic factorscontribute Alzheimer's disease to become a pivotal health problem but this relationship remainsambiguous. Globally growing prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease requires to understand cellularpathways that lead to Alzheimer’s disease and to develop new strategies for prevention andtreatment. Elevated monoamine oxidase (MAO) enzymes activity with age is associated withetiology of Alzheimer's disease. Inhibition of monoamine oxidase enzyme can protect from neuronaldamage, thus it became one of the key pathway for management of Alzheimer’s disease. Usingbioactive compounds from medicinal plants as potential monoamine oxidase inhibitors might be abetter solution considering undesired side effects of synthetic drugs on human body. The purposeof this review is to implicate the importance of pharmacophore analysis which explainspharmacological properties of medicinal plants and interaction of bioactive compounds from plantswith MAO enzyme.