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REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1528919
The Role of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Alzheimer's Disease: Targeting the PI3K/AKT Pathway
Provisionally accepted- 1 Wenzhou TCM Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, zhejiang wenzhou, China
- 2 Nanning Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Region, China
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder characterized by memory decline, cognitive impairment, and behavioral abnormalities.Pathologically, AD is marked by neurofibrillary tangles caused by excessive phosphorylation of Tau protein and abnormal deposition of β-amyloid (Aβ) in the brain.The PI3K/AKT signaling pathway plays a crucial role in the development, survival, and metabolic regulation of the central nervous system, particularly in neuronal growth, differentiation, and apoptosis. However, this pathway is often inhibited in AD patients.In recent years, studies have shown that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and its active metabolic compounds can regulate the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway, thereby improving AD pathological models. This study reviews fundamental research on TCM's regulation of the PI3K/AKT pathway in AD treatment, covering both active metabolites and compound formulations, with a systematic analysis.Keywords include "Alzheimer's disease" "AD" "dementia" "PI3K" "AKT" "Traditional Chinese Medicine" "Chinese herbology" "Chinese medicine" and "TCM" .The study is based on relevant literature published over the past 15 years, primarily sourced from electronic databases such as Web of Science, PubMed, CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP databases.The findings indicate that TCM can mitigate AD pathology by regulating the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway, reducing Tau protein phosphorylation and Aβ deposition, inhibiting inflammatory responses and oxidative stress, and alleviating neuronal apoptosis. This study deepens the understanding of TCM's anti-AD mechanisms via the PI3K/AKT pathway and provides new perspectives on the future development of TCM in AD treatment.
Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, PI3K/Akt signal pathway, Glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β), amyloid-β, Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)
Received: 15 Nov 2024; Accepted: 20 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ma, JING, Zhou, Chen, Huang and Lin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Rong Zhou, Wenzhou TCM Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, zhejiang wenzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.