The main aims of this study were to identify candidates for cognitive-enhancing herbal formulae from the Korean medicine literature and to obtain preliminary data that experimental and clinical researchers could use to develop new cognitive-enhancing drugs.
Methods:
The authors systematically searched for terms related to cognitive enhancement in Dongui Bogam (or Dongyi Baojian), a seminal Korean medicine book. They also reviewed the existing literature on the effects of candidates for cognitive-enhancing herbal formulae and their main constituents.
Results and Conclusions:
Twenty-three candidates were selected for cognitive-enhancing herbal formulae and their main constituents. For 14 herbal formulae among the 23 candidates, on average 5.6 published research papers per herbal formula describing cognitive-enhancing effects were found. In addition, some published papers were identified for 5 main constituents most frequently used to make up the 23 candidates.
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