Natural Compounds from Plants Targeting Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is a common form of dementia. Drugs currently available for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease are only symptomatic and act by augmenting the level of acetylcholine. These drugs do not stop or delay the evolution of disease and manifest specific adverse effects that limit their use. In this context, it is crucial the development of new drugs that will target the causal agent of disease. Such compounds that intervene at different levels in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease were identified in plant extracts.

In this chapter, we propose an overview of some compounds that have anti amyloidogenic activity of which the most important are: curcuminoids, ellagic acid, gallic acid, salvianolic acid B, resveratrol and epicagallocatechin-3-gallate. Besides the mechanism and biological actions, this chapter will present the vegetal products from which the active compounds are extracted, methods of extraction, identification and quantification. Selected techniques will be compared in terms of optimal conditions for extraction. Moreover, methods for identification and quantification will be described in terms of analytical conditions. Nature remains an important resource of active molecules and a hope in treating Alzheimer’s disease.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, Methods of extraction, Oxidative stress, Solvents, Vegetal products.