Gastrodin and Vascular Dementia: Advances and Current Perspectives

Gastrodia elata, a traditional Chinese medicine, has been widely used since ancient times to treat diseases such as dizziness, epilepsy, stroke, and memory loss. Gastrodin, one of the active components of Gastrodia elata, has been used in the treatment of migraine, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, dementia, and depression in recent years. It can improve cognitive function and related neuropsychiatric symptoms through various effects and is considered as a promising treatment for dementia. Vascular dementia is a kind of severe cognitive impairment syndrome caused by vascular factors, and it is the dementia syndrome with the largest number of patients besides Alzheimer's disease. Although there is still a lack of evidence-based explorations, the paper reviewed the mechanism and methods of gastrodin in the treatment of vascular dementia, providing a reference for clinical therapy.