A comprehensive review on antiepileptic properties of medicinal plants

Pakistan has large variety of medicinal plants distributed throughout the country. Due to the unavailability and high cost of allopathic medicines, herbal therapists, especially in rural areas, prescribe phytomedicine for Epilepsy. The native people consider such treatments most effective for seizures. The data of the effective antiepileptic medicinal plants of Pakistan were collected from the published research articles by exploring article search engines like PubMed, Medline, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect. Additional information such as mode of preparation and application of medicinal herbs were acquired from folk medicine users, traditional healers, and local people enriched in knowledge of herbal medicines. Total 97 families were uncovered to be used in epileptic and seizure disorders, of which, the foremost use belonged to Lamiacea 19 (18.56%), Asteraceae and Fabaceae 16 (16.5%) each, Fabaceae 11 (11.34%), Rubiaceae, Rutaceae, and Apocynaceae 6 (2.4%) each, Caesalpiniaceae, Solanaceae, Byrtaceae and Anacardiaceae 5 (2%) each, and Liliaceae, Mimosaceae, Ranunculaceae and Combretaceae 4 (1.6%) each. According to the plants habit, of 241 plants, herbs were 102 (42.15%), trees were 72 (29.75%), shrubs were 54 (22.31%), climbers were 12 (4.96%), and bulbs were 2 (0.83%). According to the part used, 105 (43.39%) plants were found to have antiepileptic potentials in leaves, 51 (31.07%) plants in roots, 20 (8.36%) plants in stem, 8 (3.31%) plants in rhizome, 4 (1.65%) plants in bulb, 32 (13.22%) plants in bark, 6 (2.48%) plants in gum, 19 (7.85%) plants in flowers, 18 (7.44%) plants in fruits, 24 (9.92%) plants in seeds, and 29 (11.98%) plants as a whole. This review provides foundation for researchers to understand the pivotal role of certain medicinal plants towards the treatment of epilepsy and seizures.