Application of zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model organism for central nervous system disorders screening of natural products.

Objectives: Natural products (NP) play a crucial role in the development of new compounds, due to their complex chemical structure and pharmacological diversity. Neurodegenerative diseases and other disorders in the central nervous system (CNS) have become a significant problem in the world due to the increase in life expectancy of the elderly population. This increases the risk of developing diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, this exploratory review aims to show the applications of zebrafish for NP research and how they can be used in CNS's in vivo studies.

Methods: The present review covers the literature survey until 2023, including the descriptors for zebrafish, natural product and neurodegenerative diseases. The databases used were PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane and Lilacs.

Key Findings: For the development of new medicines, an efficient animal model is required, and the zebrafish has stood out as a promising model due to its small size, low cost of maintenance, ease of handling, and transparency of embryos, which allows real-time observation of development and pathological processes. They possess conserved neurotransmission systems such as glutamatergic, cholinergic, dopaminergic, serotonergic, histaminergic, GABAergic, and purinergic pathways, making them especially relevant for modelling CNS disorders. From literature survey, flavonoids, alkaloids, and phenolic compounds were the most frequently studied, indicating that its influence the pathophysiological mechanisms associated with neurodegenerative diseases.

Conclusions: This current review offers data for further research work with natural products aiming treatment for CNS disorders.