New Evidences for the Pharmaceutical Use of Flavonoid Molecules in Acute Brain Pathology

Brain pathology is a leading cause of death all over the world. Despite intensive research aimed at developing neuroprotective treatments for brain injury, no drugs have been proved successful in advanced clinical trials. It is known that the acute brain injury results from – among others – the combined effects of cellular energy failure, acidosis, glutamate release, intracellular calcium accumulation, lipid peroxidation, and nitric oxide neurotoxicity that disrupt essential components of the cell, resulting in death. The formation of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species is a common result of these processes in brain tissues and it can activate diverse downstream signalling pathways and transcription factors regulating expression of genes encoding a variety of pro-inflammatory proteins and inducible nitric oxide synthase. In this context, epidemiological evidences have acknowledged natural compounds with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties as potential neuroprotective molecules for brain pathology