Cognitive-Enhancing Herbal Formulae in Korean Medicine: Identification of Candidates by Text Mining and Literature Review.

Objective: 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.