ANXIOLYTIC POTENTIAL OF MEDICINAL PLANTS- A REVIEW

Recently, it is estimated that over 970 million people worldwide are suffering from mental disorder. Globally, over 284 million people are suffering from anxiety disorder, about 264 million people from depression, 45 million people from bipolar disorder, 20 million people from schizophrenia and over 50 million people have dementia. Anxiety disorders are considered the most common mental illness which comprises approximately 4% of the worldwide population. Being a high prevalence rate, anxiety disorders also account for one of the major expenditure for its management. These horrible data are attracting the researchers’ attention towards pharmacotherapeutic approaches for the management of such modernization-borne disorders. Although, medicinal chemists have explored different class of compounds to prevent anxiety disorders, there is still much to be done in this area. High systemic toxicity of synthetic drugs (barbiturates, benzodiazepines etc.) have accelerated the focus on the search for newer natural products which combat anxiety disorders, and have more human acceptability, being relatively less or non-toxic. The current review comprises references from various databases such as ScienceDirect, SciFinder, Chemical Abstracts, PubMed, Dr. Dukes Phytochemical & Ethnobotany, InteliHealth, CIMER etc. The present review emphasizes on various plants used for the management of anxiety disorders with their botanical name, common name, part/extract/isolated phytoconstituent used, doses, mechanism of action, animal models/clinical parameters in human being and patented formulations.