The whole plant extract of plant Sceletium tortuosum, plant native to South Africa, has been known traditionally to have mood enhancing and stimulant properties. These properties have been confirmed before by proving serotonin-uptake inhibition activity. A further confirmation by using CB1 receptor binding assay has been performed in this study. The unfermented alkaloid extract was proved to posses a higher activity to bind CB1 receptor compared to that of the fermented one. GC-MS analysis confirmed that unfermented alkoloid extract contain more alkaloids than the fermented one. The methanol extract was also more active than the fermented one, suggesting that non-alkaloid compounds in this extract...

The word dementia describes a class of heterogeneous diseases which etiopathogenetic mechanisms are not well understood. There are different types of dementia, among which, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular dementia (VaD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are the more common. Currently approved pharmacological treatments for most forms of dementia seem to act only on symptoms without having profound disease-modifying effects. Thus, alternative strategies capable of preventing the progressive loss of specific neuronal populations are urgently required. In particular, the attention of researchers has been focused on phytochemical compounds that have shown antioxidative, anti-amyloidogenic, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic properties and that could represent...