Abstract

Mahak Mouriya, Kushi Thakur, Karan Sahu, Lal Miyan and Shikha Mishra*

ABSTRACT

Dementia is a brain disorder marked by cognitive dysfunctioning which causes loss of learning, thinking and memory. Nootropic drugs are those which are proclaimed to direct toward boosting the cognitive capabilities. Memory encodes, decodes, and stores information. Cognitive deficits or memory impairment that is present with neuropsychiatric conditions insists adoption of nootropics to improve cognitive abilities. Various drugs that possess nootropic activity are used for treatment of dementia but emerges side effects. To overcome these side effects plants with medicinal importance came into existence. India has wide variety of medicinal plants like Centella asiatica, Clitoria ternatea, Ginkgo biloba, Curcuma longa etc that has been claimed for nootropic activity with limited side effects. The current review article rehabilitates knowledge of medicinal plants with nootropic action and refurbishes knowledge on therapeutic and pharmacological actions along with major chemical constituents, safety, and conceivable mechanism of action of the chosen herbs from ayurvedic pharmacopoeia. Simultaneously, it comes up with further investigation and standardization on nootropic herbs.