Pharmaceutical Genomic Analysis of Herbal Drugs for Depressive Disorders

Abstract 

The two most common mental diseases, anxiety, and depression are co-morbid in nature and afflict many people all over the world. Due to numerous adverse effects caused by traditional medications, there is a surge in demand for complementary and alternative treatments, particularly herbal botanicals. Due to a lack of scientific information on their neurochemical routes, herbal drugs that are described in traditional remedies have trouble being accepted by the medical community. Thus, the effort to understand the mechanisms of action of herbal psychotropics has garnered more attention. Research in the area of herbal psychopharmacology has picked up steam in recent years thanks to developments in "omic technologies" like genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, which have made it faster and more informative to evaluate herbal medications and formulations in-depth.

Introduction

With a 12-month prevalence rate of use ranging from 10 to 76%, there is an increasing demand for complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) across various populations for various illnesses. Traditional medicine is now part of the standard healthcare system in nations like China and India. Herbal botanicals are becoming more popular for treating a variety of conditions that require lifelong care due to their safer pharmacological profile and fewer adverse effects. According to reports, psychiatric patients use CAMs frequently—anywhere from 20 to 80%—and herbal supplements make up about 4-5% of this total. Most psychiatric patients who visit CAM practitioners have depression or anxiety diagnoses. The clinical usefulness of CAMs is still debatable among many medical experts, nevertheless, because there is a dearth of research and well-designed studies in this area. Advanced genetic technologies have been increasingly used in basic and clinical science research on CAMs over time.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorders are two of the most common psychiatric and mood disorders. An overwhelming fear of a potentially dangerous circumstance that results in an unpleasant emotional state is anxiety. In anxiety disorders, this vigilance intensifies and grows out of proportion to the threat. Anxiety disorders have many different manifestations, as well as recognizable physiological reactions and protective behaviors. This emotional response has persisted throughout the evolution of humans and is perceptible in other species as well. People with anxiety disorders are frequently paralyzed by severe mental and physical symptoms. These reactions take the form of numerous anxiety-related disorders, including panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, social phobias, and generalized anxiety disorder. These illnesses develop as a result of intricate interactions between the limbic system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which are important in the pathophysiology of the disease's expression. According to statistics, 7.3% of individuals worldwide have an anxiety disorder, which means that 1 in 14 people experience anxiety at some point in time. The age range of 15 to 49 years old was discovered to be the most affected.

Globally, there were 272.2 million cases of anxiety documented in 2010, ranking anxiety as the sixth most common disability. On the other hand, MDD also referred to as unipolar depression, has a variety of symptoms including persistent sadness, loss of interest, fatigue, loss of pleasure, sinking self-worth, poor concentration, low self-esteem, difficulty making decisions, insomnia, appetite changes, and suicidal thoughts.

Genetics and the Psychopharmacology of Herbs

Over the years, there have been significant changes in the field of gene expression analysis. However, the combination of genetic methods and herbal medicine for treating psychiatric diseases is a relatively recent development. Northern, western, dot-blot, and polymerase chain reaction blotting are the methods that are most frequently employed for gene expression analysis. Additionally, only a small number of recent research have used microarray technology to simultaneously identify thousands of genes related to anxiety and depression.

Conclusion

Different psychiatric diseases, particularly depression and anxiety, are affecting an increasing number of people's daily lives and placing an increasing financial burden on society. Only a small portion of the herbal medications for anxiety and depression have had their intricate biological mechanisms thoroughly examined in randomized controlled trials (RCT) and open-label trials (OLT). These herbal remedies frequently have overlapping mechanisms of action, which may have an impact on the treatments for other comorbid illnesses. However, the clinical pharmacology of many popular herbal antidepressants and anxiolytics is little understood, and it is necessary to pinpoint and clarify the molecular targets and pathways involved in their action. As a result, the main goal of modern herbal psychopharmacology is to identify the crucial neurochemical pathways and genes involved in their functions and neural plasticity. As a result, the main goal of modern herbal psychopharmacology is to identify the crucial neurochemical pathways and genes involved in their functions and neural plasticity. The discovery of these genes will help researchers understand the effectiveness, responsiveness, pharmacogenetic association, and side effects of antipsychotic medications.

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