About this Research Topic
Both the peripheral (chronic pain) and the central (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, epilepsy) nervous system play a crucial role for a wide variety of diseases and therefore there many research projects worldwide focus on the discovery of novel neuroactive drugs. However, the pathophysiology underlying acute and chronic diseases that affect nervous tissue is still not completely understood. Additionally, most of these diseases still lack proper treatment. For example, a strong pharmacoresistance to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) is common, which contributes to the challenge of properly treating epilepsy. In addition, all current treatments yield several significant side effects in epilepsy patients.
The use of natural compounds for the discovery of novel medicines is promising some relief in this area. Most of the top best-selling drugs are derived from natural products (such as aspirin, a semi-synthetic drug based on salicin isolated from the plant Salix alba, and cannabidiol obtained from the cannabis plant Cannabis sativa), with their total sales in 2021 amounting to almost US$ 18 billion, demonstrating the importance of research on natural products. Despite a decrease in the industry-lead research on natural products, a large amount of new chemical entities derived from natural products is continuously approved by regulatory authorities around the world.
In this Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences article collection, we want highlight some of the efforts in preclinical discovery and development of drug candidates from natural sources that are acting on the nervous system. We welcome contributions describing naturally derived compounds from plants and animals that have shown promising therapeutic effects in different models of CNS disorders. We aim at attracting contributions reporting on neuroactive compounds with already elucidated chemical composition, which provide further details on their characterization using in vitro and in vivo models of chronic or acute neurological and psychiatric diseases. Specific themes include but are not limited to the following topics:
• Advancements in the methodology for isolating neuroactive compounds from plants and animals and for elucidating their chemical structure.
• Relationship between products of natural origin and chemically synthetized medicines
• Current in vitro and in vivo techniques for studying CNS therapeutics.
• Main acute and chronic CNS diseases that affect humans. Contributions on clinical studies involving human patients will not be accepted.
• Natural products with neuroactive properties and their biological activity at the molecular level.
Types of articles accepted: Comments, short communications, scientific articles, reviews, Brief Research Report, Correction, Data Report, Editorial, General Commentary, Hypothesis & Theory, Methods, Mini Review, Opinion, Original Research, Perspective, Review, Technology and Code.
Keywords: CNS therapeutics, natural products, molecular, neuroactive compounds, drugs
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.