Unravelling role of crocin for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease: sojourn from food to nanomedicine

Flavonoids have a longstanding tradition of being employed in traditional medicine to improve human health. Crocin has been suggested as a potential candidate for addressing a range of ailments, including neurodegenerative diseases (NDs). In the modern era, diverse pharmacological activities of crocin have been explored due to its bioactive constituents like kaempferol, picrocrocin, safranal, and crocetin. It demonstrates pharmacological and therapeutic efficacy against various diseases such as cancer, kidney diseases, NDs, and measles, attributable to several mechanisms. Various studies evidence that it exerts a neuroprotective effect in conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and others, by modulating relevant parameters. Despite harboring numerous pharmacological benefits, it exhibits low bioavailability due to poor solubility and limited ability to cross the blood–brain barrier (BBB). To address this issue, diverse approaches involving nanoformulations have been developed to enhance their bioavailability, aqueous solubility, and BBB permeability. Various types of studies have been conducted on crocin-loaded nanoparticles against NDs, which are discussed in this paper.