Antioxidant and acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activities of Indonesian cultivated medicinal plants

Background: Throughout many decades, researchers all around the world still extensively search for treatment strategies for Alzheimer's disease. Dispute the small number of medicines that can be used for the treatment, the side effects, and the only symptomatic treatments of the drug, which makes the necessity of finding new sources of drugs from plant sources a critical movement. Objective: In this research, we investigate the potential of 33 traditional medicines plants from Indonesia for their acetylcholinesterase inhibitor and antioxidant properties. Methods: The inhibitory potential of acetylcholinesterase was carried out using spectrophotometry using acetylcholine as a substrate and antioxidant activity was measured using the FRAP method. Results: The results indicate that among the 33 plants, only seven plants with an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor (AChEI). Those plants are Chromolaena odorata, Mikania scandes, Piper cubeba, Peperomia pellucida, Persea americana, Lycium barbarum and Phyllanthus niruri.  All the plant samples showed remarkable antioxidant potency with the range of value 4.11 – 52.65 mg/mL. Conclusions: Persea americana (Lauraceae) had the greatest AChEI with a value of 4.11 mg/mL, meanwhile Piper cubeba (Piperaceae) has the highest potency in scavenging free radicals with an FRAP Value of 10.89 mg/mL. There was no correlation between AChEI and Antioxidant potency.