Table 2.

Protective effect of astragaloside IV on the brain and nervous system

Disease categories	Study object/model	Effect induced by autophagy	Mechanism (targets or pathways)	Ref.
Ischemic stroke	MCAO in SD rats; OGD/R in HT22 cells	A neuroprotective role (-) apoptosis (+) autophagy	(+) cell viability, balanced Bcl-2 and Bax expression, (-) the rate of apoptosis, (-) p62, (+) LC3 II/LC3 I	Zhang et al[27]
Acute ischaemic stroke	Acute ischaemic stroke mice	(-) The abnormal intestinal microbial; (-) ROS, homocysteine and FFA, NOX2/4, and autophagy marker	(-) Autophagy-related gene (Beclin 1, LC3 II, Atg 12	Xu et al[28]
Ischemic stroke	OGD/R in PC12 cells	(-) Excessive autophagy and damage in PC12 cells	The PI3K I/Akt/mTOR and PI3K III/Becline-1/Bcl-2 signalling pathways	Huang et al[30]
Spinal cord injury	Vascular clip to clamp the spinal cord in SD rats	(+) Functional recovery in the spinal cord; (-) apoptosis via (+) autophagy in neuronal cells	(-) mTORC1 (+) lysosomal biogenesis through TFEB	Lin et al[29]
Parkinson’s disease	MPTP-induced PD mouse model	(-) The loss of dopamine neurons and behavioural deficits; (+) mitophagy	(-) Damaged mitochondria accumulation, (-) mitochondrial ROS generation	Xia et al[31]

MCAO: Middle cerebral artery occlusion; OGD/R: Oxygen and glucose deprivation/reoxygenation; PC12: A neuron cell line; LC: Lung cancer; ROS: Reactive oxygen species; FFA: Free fatty acids; NOX: NADPH oxidases; Atg: Autophagy; MPTP: 1-Methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine; PD: Parkinson’s disease.