Mechanism of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Prevention and Treatment of Parkinson's Disease：A Review / 中国实验方剂学杂志

Parkinson's disease （PD） is a progressive chronic neurodegenerative disorder with a complex pathogenesis involving oxidative stress， neuroinflammation， mitochondrial dysfunction， and other factors. Currently， the clinical treatment of PD mainly includes levodopa， dopamine receptor agonists， monoamine oxidase B inhibitors， catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitors， and anticholinergic drugs， but there is a lack of disease-modif g therapies that can definitively improve disease progression. According to the understanding of traditional Chinese medicine （TCM）， PD is characterized by asthenia in origin and sthenia in superficiality. It is primarily caused by liver-kidney Yin deficiency， Qi-blood insufficiency， and closely related to wind， fire， phlegm， and blood stasis. Numerous clinical practices have shown that TCM has significant clinical value in the prevention and treatment of PD， the management of motor and non-motor symptoms， and the neuroprotection of dopaminergic neurons. The underlying mechanisms of TCM include antioxidative stress， anti-neuroinflammation， and regulation of mitochondrial dysfunction. This article categorized and summarized the pathogenesis of PD， systematically elucidated the pharmacological actions and molecular mechanisms of TCM monomer extracts and compounds in the prevention and treatment of PD， and provided the latest clinical research progress， aiming to provide references for the development and clinical use of TCM for PD.

Improvement on compactibility of the alcoholic extract of Zingiberis Rhizoma by co-spray drying with HPMC / 中国中药杂志

Aiming to solve the poor compactibility of the alcoholic extract of Zingiberis Rhizoma(ZR), this study explored the feasibility of its physical modification using co-spray drying with a small amount of hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose(HPMC). Based on the univariate analysis, the influence of two independent variables(the HPMC content in the product and the solid content of spray material) on the powder properties and tablet properties of the dried product was investigated by the central composite design. With the tensile strength and disintegration time of the tablets as the evaluation indexes, the optimal prescription was determined as follows: the HPMC content was 15% and the solid content of spray material was 25.6%. The accuracy of the regression model established for predicting tensile strength and disintegration time of tablets was verified, and the results revealed that the measured values were close to the predicted ones with deviations of 0.47% and-8.2%, indicating good prediction and reproducibility of the model. The tensile strength(4.24 MPa) of tablets prepared with the optimal prescription was 3.59 times that(1.18 MPa, far lower than the baseline of 2 MPa for qualified tablets) with the spray-dried powder of the ZR. On the other hand, due to the addition of HPMC, the disintegration time of tablets increased from 7.3 min to 24.6 min. On the whole, this study provided a new strategy to solve the common problem of poor compactibility of raw Chinese medicinal materials, which facilitated the successful preparation of Chinese medicinal tablets with high drug loads.

Study on anti-hygroscopic technology based on correlations between particle spatial properties and hygroscopicity of Chinese medicinal extracts / 中国中药杂志

This study was designed to investigate the correlations of the spatial structure properties of Chinese medicinal extracts with hygroscopicity and the anti-hygroscopic techniques. With Poria extract used as the model drug, pregelatinised starch and microcrystalline cellulose at different ratios were added into Poria fluid extract for preparing powder particles with diverse spatial structures using different drying processes. Then, their hygroscopic behaviours were characterized by equilibrium hygroscopicity(F~∞) and semi-hygroscopic time(t_(1/2)). The correlations of the hygroscopicity of each powder with the spatial structure properties such as particle size(D_(90)), porosity(ε), true density(ρ_t), and surface element distribution were analyzed using partial least-squares method. The F~∞ and t_(1/2) values of Poria extract prepared by three drying methods were sorted in a descending order as follows: F~∞(spray drying>drying at ordinary pressure>drying at reduced pressure); t_(1/2)(drying at reduced pressure>drying at ordinary pressure>spray drying). The powder obtained by spray drying showed a spherical structure with the smallest particle size and intra-particle ε but relatively stronger hygroscopicity. The large-scale surface element enrichment of the powders dried by reduced pressure effectively reduced their hygroscopicity. F~∞ and t_(1/2) were negatively correlated with ε but positively with D_(90), and the interactive influence of each spatial structural properties was not significant. There existed a correlation between the spatial structure of the powder particles of Chinese medicine extracts and their hygroscopicity, and the hygroscopicity could be improved by designing the spatial structure. This study has provided some practical basis for developing the moisture-proof technology of Chinese medicinal preparations.