Recent approaches towards selected lamiaceae plants for their prospective use in neuroprotection

Abstract

Lamiaceae is one of the largest plant families in the world represented by approximately 250 genera, most of which are aromatic and medicinally important. Although Salvia L., known as sage, constitutes the largest genus within this family having over 900 species all over the world, many culinary herbs such as basil, mint, rosemary, savory, marjoram, oregano, thyme, lavender, and perilla are also included in Lamiaceae. On the other hand, some of the members of this family such as sage and rosemary have been recorded to be used against memory loss in European folk medicine, and this record prompted us to investigate the neuroprotective effects of several Lamiaceae plants of Turkish origin on scientific base for their enzyme inhibitory potentials against cholinesterase family: acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase and their antioxidative capacity in various in vitro test systems. During our efforts, we screened over 90 species of Salvia well as 33 taxa of the genus Scutellaria, Rosmarinus officinalis, etc. However, many other researchers also reported about neuroprotective effects of various members of Lamiaceae. In this chapter, the recent data reported on neuroprotective effects of selected Lamiaceae plants with their active secondary metabolites will be covered and discussed in comparison with our relevant data. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.