Berberine a plant compound has shown several health benefits. The following are some interesting examples of that.

Berberine suppresses neuroinflammatory responses through activation of the AMP-activated protein kinase (Lu DY, et al., 2010). AMP-activated protein kinase is an enzyme involved in energy metabolism. Berberine has shown to inhibit proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, and IL-6.

Berberine significantly down-regulates cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression in microglia cells. COX-2 are inflammatory for promoting enzymes. Microglia cells are located throughout the brain and spinal cord and provide an immune defense. Immune defense is important, but we don’t need a lot of inflammation, that is destructive.

Research suggests that berberine provides benefits for Alzheimer's disease by limiting the formation of extracellular amyloid plaques and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles (Cai Z, et al., 2016).

These researchers wrote that their data indicated that berberine decreases the production of beta-amyloid (Zhu F, et al., 2011).

The accumulation of beta-amyloid is known to be involved in Alzheimer's disease.

Berberine has shown the ability to reduce beta-amyloid levels in human neuroglioma cells with a berberine concentration that does not produce cellular toxicity (Asai M, et al., 2007).

References:

Asai M, Iwata N, Yoshikawa A, Aizaki Y, Ishiura S, Saido TC, Maruyama K, Berberine alters the processing of Alzheimer's amyloid precursor protein to decrease Abeta secretion. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2007 Jan 12;352(2):498-502.

Lu DY, Tang CH, Chen YH, Wei IH. Berberine suppresses neuroinflammatory responses through AMP-activated protein kinase activation in BV-2 microglia. J Cell Biochem. 2010 Jun 1;110(3):697-705.

Zhiyou Cai, Chuanling Wang, Wenming Yang, Role of berberine in Alzheimer's disease, Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2016 Oct 3;12:2509-2520.

Zhu F, Wu F, Ma Y, Liu G, Li Z, Sun Y, Pei Z. Decrease in the production of β-amyloid by berberine inhibition of the expression of β-secretase in HEK293 cells. BMC Neurosci. 2011 Dec 12;12:125.