Recently, Professor Chen Zhong’s team from Zhejiang Chinese Medical University (ZCMU) has made new progress in discovering anti-epileptic active compounds. The team published research online in Acta Pharmacologica Sinica, titled “Huperzine A attenuates epileptic seizures via enhancing dCA1-projecting septal cholinergic transmission”. It systematically reveals that Huperzine A (Hup A), a natural plant alkaloid, exerts broad-spectrum anti-epileptic efficacy and its mechanism of action via enhancing hippocampal dorsal CA1 (dCA1)-projecting septal cholinergic transmission. This research provides potential therapeutic avenues for epilepsy through targeted cholinergic modulation and helps explain the modern scientific connotation of how Hup A, a heat-clearing and detoxifying herb, plays a new role in epilepsy treatment.

The first author of the research is Dr. Wang Yu, a postdoctoral researcher from the First School of Clinical Medicine, ZCMU. Zhang Qingyang, a Ph.D. student, and Postgraduates, Hu Keyu and Song Yingjie, all from the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of ZCMU, are the co-first authors. Professor Chen Zhong and Wang Yi are the corresponding authors. The research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation, the Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation and others.