Search

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive brain disease that causes cognitive impairment in seniors. The beta-amyloid (Aβ) deposition and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles are two pathological hallmarks of AD. The increase of AD hallmarks causes inflammatory response enhancement, reduction of synaptic plasticity, and impaired cognition. The percentage of the aging population is growing along with the number of AD patients; however, effective treatment of AD is still limited. Therefore, developing preventive and therapeutic drugs for AD with fewer adverse side effects is urgently needed. The crude extracts from herbs such as Centella asiatica, Dendrobium catenatum, Litsea cubeba, Nardostachys jatamansi, Convolvulus pluricaulis, Melissa officinalis, Magnolia officinalis, Withania somnifera, and Nigella sativa improved memory performance and reduced inflammation response in various diseases. In addition, herbal blends usually have minimum aversive effects and can be mixed into diet and served as nutritional supplements. Hence, it is promising to develop Chinese herbal extracts to prevent or treat early AD. This review article highlights the currently available treatments of AD and the therapeutic effects of a group of crude extracts from Chinese herbs that can prevent cognitive decline and reduce the excessive inflammatory response. The possible clinical use of these Chinese herbal extracts in AD is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by cognitive deficits. Two hallmarks of AD that cause chronic inflammation and lead to neuronal dysfunction and damage are tau tangles and amyloid plaques. Microglial cells, the primary immune cells of the central nervous system, maintain a homeostatic active/inactive state via a bidirectional, dynamic communication with neurons. Several studies have revealed that dysregulated microglial activation leads to AD pathology. Therefore, we reviewed the relationship between AD and two important signaling complexes, CX3 chemokine ligand 1 (CX3CL1)/CX3CR1 and ATP/P2X7R, that play critical roles in the regulation of microglial activation. CX3CL1/CX3CR1 is one important signaling which controls the microglia function. Altering this pathway can have opposite effects on amyloid and tau pathology in AD. Another important molecule is P2X7R which involves in the activation of microglia. Over activation of P2X7R is evident in AD pathogenesis. In this review, we discuss influence of the two signaling pathways at different stages of AD pathology as well as the drug candidates that can modulate CX3CL1/CX3CR1 and ATP/P2X7R. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • 3xTg-AD male mice and TFC were optimal for learning and memory behavioral test. • Male 3xTg-AD mice exhibit normal sensory and locomotor functions up to 6-month old. • 6-months male 3xTg-AD mice start to demonstrate declined retrieval of fear memory. The triple transgenic Alzheimer's disease (3xTg-AD) strain is a common mouse model used for studying the pathology and mechanism of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The 3xTg-AD strain exhibits two hallmarks of AD, amyloid beta (Aβ) and neurofibrillary tangles. Several studies using different gender and age of 3xTg-AD mice to investigate their behavior phenotypes under the influence of various treatments have reported mixed results. Therefore, a comprehensive investigation on the optimal gender, age, and training paradigms used for behavioral studies of 3xTg-AD is necessary. In the present study, we investigated the behavioral phenotypes for the two genders of 3xTg-AD mice at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months old and compared the results with age-, gender-matched C57BL/6N control strain. All mice were subjected to tail flick, pinprick, open field, elevated plus maze, passive avoidance, and trace fear conditioning (TFC) tests to evaluate their sensory, locomotor, anxiety, and learning/memory functions. The results showed that TFC on male 3xTg-AD mice is optimal for studying the memory performance in AD. The sensory and locomotor functions of 3xTg-AD mice for two genders appear to be normal before 6 months, decline in fear memory afterwards. The differences between control and 3xTg-AD male mice in contextual and cued memory are robust, thus they are ideal for evaluating the effect of a treatment. Since it is costly and time consuming to obtain wildtype littermates as controls, C57BL/6N strain is suggested to be used as control mice because their baseline performance of sensorimotor functions are similar to that of 3xTg-AD mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]