Table 3.

TCM for treating AD by inducing or attenuating autophagy effect.

Numbers	Compounds	Chemistry structure	Dosages	Activities	Molecular mechanism	Models	References
1	Berberine		50–100 mg/kg/day	Promote Aβ clearance, improve learning and memory capacity	Induce autophagy by activating Bcl2/Beclin1 signaling	3 × Tg-AD mice	Huang et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2018
2	Andrographolide		20 μM	Decrease cell death	Induce autophagy through activation of the Nrf2-mediated p62 signaling pathway	PC12 cells	Gu et al., 2018
3	Geniposide		50 mg/kg/day	Reduce Aβ1–40 level, promote Aβ clearance, improve cognitive function	Induce autophagy by down regulation of mTOR	Age-matched C57BL/6 wild-type (WT) mice or APP/PS1 mice	Shan et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2019
4	β-asarone		240 μg/mL	Increase cell viability, decrease NSE levels	Attenuate autophagy by Akt-mTOR signaling pathway	PC12 cells	Wu and Fang, 2004; Xue et al., 2014
5	Dendrobium nobile Lindl. alkaloids	—	3.5–350 ng/mL	Inhibit axonal degeneration	Induce autophagy by promoting Beclin1	Aβ25–35-induced hippocampus primary neuron	Li et al., 2017
6	Euxanthone	—	30 mg/kg or 60 mg/kg	Attenuate memory and spatial learning dysfunction	Induce autophagy by increasing the expression level of LC3B-II and enhancing the degradation of p62	Sprague-Dawley rats	Pan and Mao, 1984; Yuan et al., 2018