| Corydalis ambigua | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Division: | Magnoliophyta |
| Class: | Magnoliopsida |
| Order: | Ranunculales |
| Family: | Papaveraceae |
| Genus: | Corydalis |
| Species: | C. ambigua |
| Binomial name | |
| Corydalis ambigua Cham. & Schltdl.[1] |
|
Corydalis ambigua is a tuberous early flowering east Asian flowering plant species. Its exact native range is obscure due to taxonomic confusion.[1] It is one of the sources of the drug tetrahydropalmatine.
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A related species, C. yanhusuo is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine. (C. remota is also substituted.) In Chinese it is called yán hú suǒ (Chinese: 延胡索).
The root of the plant is traditionally used as an analgesic and sedative, used for headache, period pain, spasm pain, gut, smooth muscle and gall bladder pain. It is a dopamine receptor antagonist. Analgesic effects last about 2 hours and it does not create tolerance. The alkaloid tetrahydropalmatine also has a number of cardiovascular actions. Derivatives of tetrahydroprotoberberines were found to be useful to increase pain tolerance and for treating drug addiction.[2] Further they may represent a category of neurotransmitter stabilizer which has potential use in broad range of psychotic and neurological disorders.[2]
Corydalis ambigua contains a variety of alkaloids including corynoline, acetylcorynoline d-corydalin, dl-tetrahydropalmatine, protopine, tetrahydrocoptisine, dl-tetrahydrocoptisine, d-corybulbine and allo-crytopine.[3][4][5][6]