Advances in Bioactive Compounds from Plants and Their Applications in Alzheimer's Disease.
📄 Abstract
Alzheimer's disease (AD), the leading cause of dementia worldwide, is characterized by progressive neuronal loss, amyloid-β (Aβ) aggregation, tau hyperphosphorylation, oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, cholinergic dysfunction, and gut-brain axis dysregulation. Despite advances in anti-amyloid therapeutics, current interventions provide only modest symptomatic relief and face limitations in accessibility, cost, and long-term efficacy. Plant-derived bioactive compounds, rooted in traditional medicine systems such as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine, have gained increasing attention as multi-target therapeutic agents due to their pleiotropic actions, relative safety, and ability to cross the blood-brain barrier. This review synthesizes mechanistic and translational evidence on major phytochemicals, including withanolides (