An overview of the effect of medicinal herbs on pain

This paper is typically intended to carefully collect and properly review the antinociceptive activities of medicinal plants. In this review article, by searching keywords of medicinal plants, pain, herbal medicine, antinociceptive, phytotherapy in databases of Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, Springer, Wiley, Proquest, PubMed, Nature, Magiran, Emerald, SID, ISI, and some other indexing cites, or traditional books, desired articles were obtained until 2021. The title of medicinal plants was searched diligently in Persian and English. Ultimately, 270 articles were studied. The findings possibly indicated that several medicinal plants are among the most valuable plants that have antinociceptive activities. There efficiently are various antinociceptive compounds in medicinal plants. The antinociceptive activity of these specific compounds may be through their peculiar effects on the opioid system, cholinergic pathways, and stimulation of GABA receptors, with the peripheral and central antinociceptive mechanism. Antiinflammatory processes, inhibition of the synthesis, and the release of arachidonic acid, prostaglandins, phospholipase, nitric oxide, and cyclooxygenase-2 have been reported as analgesic mechanisms of some herbs. In a reasonable conclusion, our review thoughtfully provides a comprehensive summary of present data from some scientific studies on the common herbs with antinociceptive and antiinflammatory activities.