Cerebrospinal fluid pharmacology: an improved pharmacology approach for chinese herbal medicine research

Abstract

Despite many successful applications of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) in the treatment and prevention of neurological diseases (ND), the fully scientific understanding of CHM's action mechanisms had been hampered for lack of appropriate methods to explore the combinatorial rules, the synergistic mechanisms, and the molecular basis of CHM. As an improved pharmacology approach, cerebrospinal fluid pharmacology (CSFP), based on the fact that cerebrospinal fluid plays an important role in the health maintenance of specific survival environment for neurons and glial cells, has been constructed and applied to CHM research for treating ND. In the present review, the concept and advantages of CSFP are briefly introduced. The approaches and key technologies of CSFP in CHM research are also collated and analyzed. Furthermore, the developing tendency of CSFP is summarized, and its framework in CHM research is also proposed. In summary, CSFP provides a new strategy not only to eliminate some barriers of CHM research for treating ND, but also to broaden the pharmacology research for bridging the gap between CHM and modern medicine. Moreover, the advancements in CSFP will bring about a conceptual move in active ingredients discovery of CHM and make a significant contribution to CHM modernization and globalization.

Figure 1

Developing tendency of CSF pharmacology study for CHM research. The publications of CSF pharmacology for CHM research in PubMed and CNKI databases from 1999 to August 2013. All results were screened in manual way.

Figure 2

CSFP approaches for CHM research. It analyzes the ingredients of CHM, metabolites from ingredients of the CHM, and produced active substance in CSF containing CHM. Finally, it carries out experimental verifications to mutual authentication for the discovery of CHM-derived targets, effect prediction, mechanism clarification, and new drug assistant discovery using CSFP approach.