Therapeutic role of plant bioactive compounds in atrazine-mediated neurotoxicity

Neurons require protective systems throughout their entire life course to function prop-erly. However, the brain remains highly susceptible to injury with modern environmental dynamics, when threats, produced naturally and synthetically, can bypass the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and cause neurological damage. Among those toxicants, atrazine (ATZ) has been regarded as a neurotoxic environmental pollutant. Both low-dose exposure and variable courses (short- and long-term) carried out in different experimental models demonstrated that ATZ impairs multiple neurochemical pathways. The resultant disruption leads to oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuroinflammation, culminating in neuronal injury and impaired function. Despite the limited number of existing studies, bioactive compounds such as lycopene, isoflavones, and biflavanone kolaviron have been shown to be promising neuroprotective agents against ATZ neurotoxicity. These compounds, derived from natural bioactive tomato, soybean, walnut, and bitter kola- Garcinia kola, respectively, possess antioxidant and neuroprotective potentials, thus capable of mitigating the toxic actions of ATZ exposure. Overall, in vitro and in vivo studies accentuate that plant-derived bioactive compounds offer therapeutic benefits in mitigating neurotoxicity from ATZ. However, further research is needed to elucidate the detailed mechanisms by which the plants bioactive compounds mitigate ATZ-induced neurotoxicity, including their interactions with the pathways involved in the neurotoxic effects of ATZ.