Herbal medicines in Managing Stroke and Neurodegenerative Diseases – Is there Evidence based on Basic and Clinical Studies? , Volume II

This Research Topic is part of a series. See also Volume I: Herbal medicines in Managing Stroke and Neurodegenerative Diseases – Is there Evidence based on Basic and Clinical Studies?.

Stroke and dementia are common diseases afflicting the elderly population. For example, stroke is leading cause of death in many countries, and Alzheimer’s disease is also one not to be overlooked in terms of the medical and financial burden caused by 2020. Though great progress has been made, these illnesses still remain incurable or can be partially improved. Ischemic stroke has been successfully managed with thrombolytic agents and endovascular thrombectomy, but a decent proportion of patients still can not completely restore their neurological functions. These patients with remaining symptoms will be the potential target population of herbal recipes as an adjuvant therapy. Intracerebral hemorrhage and Alzheimer’s disease do not even have an effective treatment apart from symptomatic relief. Therefore, it is demanding to discover new and efficacious treatments for these disorders.

In searching for therapeutics, that could serve as adjuvant therapies for these conditions for patients suffering from these diseases, it has been revealed that herbal decoctions such as Chinese herbs and many other traditional medicines have been widely used by practitioners and physicians in different countries. However, in the case of many traditional medical systems the majority of herbal recipes have been used empirically based on the specific diagnostic criteria of that given traditional practice. For the same clinical manifestations, different herbal recipes are used based on the diagnosis by traditional medicine practitioners. There must be is a significant difference in the etiology and pathogenic mechanisms of these diseases. Though there are a large number of publications on clinical use of herbal recipes, few of them comply with the criteria of randomized controlled trials. It is, therefore, necessary to assess the scientific evidence for these herbal recipes in managing the above mentioned illnesses using state of the art pharmacological techniques. This will not only facilitate the discovery of new therapeutics or compounds, but also refresh our knowledge in understanding how these diseases develop.

The proposed research topic aims to achieve the following three goals:

- To encourage submissions of new herbal recipes which have been empirically used for abovementioned diseases or traditional recipes which have not been used for these types of disorders. The collections of these recipes will become promising adjuvant therapies for the above conditions.

- To facilitate collaborations between research groups in demystifying the underlying therapeutic mechanisms of different herbal recipes, and consequently to break the barrier in hindering the use of herbal recipes.

- To translate the scientific findings to medications or standardized practice by thoroughly testing the efficacy of various herbal recipes using scientifically sound methods.

This collection is open to all traditional medical practices and systems and we welcome submissions dealing with the following themes, including but not limited to:

1. Clinical studies demonstrating evidence of the usefulness of herbal recipes, plant derivatives, and other natural products in managing stroke or neurodegenerative diseases.

2. Basic original research on the underlying mechanisms of herbal recipes in managing the above conditions.

3. Reviews of or meta-analysis on the efficacy of potential herbal recipes on the above conditions and their underlying mechanisms.

4. Protocols of clinical research aiming to test the therapeutic effect of herbal recipes or compounds derived from herbal recipes.

We would like to invite submissions which will make a significant contribution to deciphering the working mechanisms of herbs, expanding the database of safe and efficacious herbal recipes, and bridging the gap in our understanding of stroke and neurodegenerative disorders. Ultimately, this will contribute to the management of diverse neurodegenerative disorders which are still challenges to neuroscientists. To this end, only late pre-clinical and clinical studies will be considered. These studies should have a theoretic background from their specific traditional practice and can be tested in animal models or humans. Results from in vitro experiments will not be considered.

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All the manuscripts submitted to the collection will need to fully comply with the Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology (you can freely download the full version here). Plausible pharmacological models must the used, which allow an assessment of the potential effects.

Keywords: herbal medicine, ethnopharmacology, plant derivatives, molecular mechanism, stroke, neurodegenerative disorders

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.