Abstract

IMPORTANT HERBS FOR CARE OF MENTAL DISORDERS

Aarti Nargesh*, Shwetal Shivhare

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Abstract

The prevalence and comorbidity of psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety and insomnia are very common. Ayurveda encompasses all aspects to restore mental, physical and spiritual health. The general principles of ayurveda not only help to cures disease but also prevent their prevalence. Over the past decades, the exploration in the area of herbal psychopharmacology has received much attention. Literatures showed a variety of herbal mechanisms of action used for the therapy of depression, anxiety and insomnia, involving re-uptake of monoamines, affecting neuroreceptor binding and channel transporter activity, modulating neuronal communication or hypothalamicpituitary adrenal axis (HPA) etc. This review has been performed to further identify modes of action of different herbal medicine, and thus provides useful information for the application of herbal medicine.

Keywords: Depression, Herbal medicine, Insomnia, Mechanism, Psychopharmacology.