Neurological disorders including neurodegenerative disorders continue to pose significant therapeutic challenges. Triterpenoids, a diverse group of natural compounds found abundantly in plants, possess promising neuroprotective properties. This review aims to explore the potential of triterpenoids in mitigating neurodegeneration through various mechanisms, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-apoptotic activities. The neuroprotective potential of some notable triterpenoids, such as asiatic acid, asiaticoside, madecassoside, bacoside A, bacopaside I, ganoderic acids, and lucidenic acids are discussed in terms of their ability to modulate key pathways implicated in neurological disorders. Additionally, the potential therapeutic applications of triterpenoids in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral ischemia, spinal cord injury, and epilepsy are examined. Furthermore, the review also underlines the challenges for the development of triterpenoids as neuroprotective agents, including the need for further preclinical and clinical studies to elucidate their efficacy and safety for translation into clinical practice.

Neural disorders refer to conditions of the nervous system due to infection or degeneration of the neurons leading to either neurodegenerative disorder or neuropsychiatric disorder. Some such disorders of the nervous system include Parkinsons’s disease, depression, amnesia, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, cerebrovascular impairment, epilepsy, seizure disorders, etc. In conventional medical system, some medicines belonging to the class of psychodelic drugs, sedatives, neurotransmitters, neuro-stimulants, etc. are in extensive use. Unfortunately, most of these drugs either delay the progression of the neural disorder or leave the patient with prominent adverse side effects. Several potent bioactive compounds with neuroprotective potential have been reported from medicinal plants and some of them have been found to be highly effective. Belonging from natural sources, mostly, the plant derived compounds exhibit minimum or no cytotoxicity at a prescribed standardised dose against a particular health ailment. Many such phytocompounds from plant sources with potent neuroprotective activities have been in use in Ayurvedacharya, Unani, and Chinese medicine for ages. The compounds if isolated chemically, modified to make more potent neuroprotective derivatives and utilised to make highly effective neuroprotective pharmaceutical formulations with minimum side effects, may open new revolutionary doorways in neuropharmacology. In this review, it has been briefly discussed about the neuroprotective compounds isolated from certain indigenous plants of West Bengal, India, and their mechanism of action.