Oleanolic acid and ursolic acid: therapeutic potential in neurodegenerative diseases, neuropsychiatric diseases and other brain disorders

ABSTRACT

Brain disorders such as neurodegenerative diseases and neuropsychiatric diseases have become serious threatens to human health and quality of life. Oleanolic acid (OA) and ursolic acid (UA) are pentacyclic triterpenoid isomers widely distributed in various plant foods and Chinese herbal medicines. Accumulating evidence indicates that OA and UA exhibit neuroprotective effects on multiple brain disorders. Therefore, this paper reviews researches of OA and UA on neurodegenerative diseases, neuropsychiatric diseases and other brain disorders including ischemic stroke, epilepsy, etc, as well as the potential underlying molecular mechanisms.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Oleanolic acid
• Ursolic acid
• neurodegenerative disease
• neuropsychiatric disease
• brain disorder
• neurological disease
• natural product
• phytochemical

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province (grant number 20JR10RA709, 20YF2FA009), and the Foundation of the First Hospital of Lanzhou University (ldyyyn2019-05).