ANTI-ALZHEIMER ACTIVITY OF SUBSTANCES FROM NATURAL PRODUCTS AND OF SYNTHETIC ORIGIN: SOME IMPORTANT EXAMPLES OF THE LAST 20 YEARS.

Alzheimer's disease has about 9.9 million new cases annually, according to World Health Organization. Due to the increasing incidence of people affected by AD and the absence of an efficient treatment or cure so far, many researchers worldwide are involved in the search for novel promising drugs candidates, through several targets, exploring distinct structural patterns. In this context, we describe herein, focusing the last 20 years, strategic examples of substances with targets related to Alzheimer's disease derived from natural products, such as alkaloids, chalcones, coumarins and flavonoids, in addition to carbamates and heterocyclic compounds. Furthermore, some cases are discussed where computational chemistry is used to better understand protein-ligand interactions.