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Abstract: Neurodegenerative and mental disorders are a public health burden with pharma-cological treatments of limited efficacy. Organoselenium compounds are receiving great at-tention in medicinal chemistry mainly because of their antioxidant and immunomodulatory activities, with a multi-target profile that can favor the treatment of multifactorial diseases. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to discuss recent preclinical studies about orga-noselenium compounds as therapeutic agents for the management of mental (e.g., depres-sion, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia) and neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and multiple sclero-sis). We have summarized around 70 peer-reviewed articles from 2016 to the present that used in silico, in vitro, and/or in vivo approaches to assess the neuropharmacology of seleni-um-containing compounds. Among the diversity of organoselenium molecules investigated in the last five years, diaryl diselenides, Ebselen-derivatives, and Se-containing heterocycles are the most representative. Ultimately, this review is expected to provide disease-oriented information regarding the neuropharmacology of organoselenium compounds that can be useful for the design, synthesis, and pharmacological characterization of novel bioactive molecules that can potentially be clinically viable candidates.

Essential oils (EO) are plant extracts widely used for various pharmacological applications and their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects have received a lot of attention because they hold the potential to reduce oxidative stress, and neuroinflammation, alterations involved in the pathophysiology of major depressive disorder. This study examined the benefits of administration of flower EO of the Tagetes minuta (10 and 50 mg/kg, intragastric route) in attenuating behavioral, neurochemical, and neuroendocrine changes in animal models of depressive-like behavior induced by acute restraint stress and lipopolysaccharide (0.83 mg/kg, intraperitoneally). We demonstrated that the treatment of mice with flower EO of the T. minuta reversed the depressive-like behavior induced by stress or inflammatory challenge in mice. This effect is most likely due to the reversal of oxidative stress in the hippocampus of mice, the decrease in plasma corticosterone levels, and restoration of the mRNA levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase, protein kinase B, and extracellular signal-regulated kinase 2. As an outcome, flower EO of the T. minuta has promising antidepressant properties and could be considered for new therapeutic strategies for major depressive disorder.

Two new Cu(II) complexes based on 4-(arylchalcogenyl)-1H-pyrazoles monodentate bis(ligand) containing selenium or sulfur groups (2a and 2b) have been synthesized and characterized by IR spectroscopy, high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), and by X-ray crystallography. In the effort to propose new applications for the biomedical area, we evaluated the antioxidant activity and cytotoxicity of the newly synthesized complexes. The antioxidant activity of the Cu(II) complexes (2a - 2b) were assessed through their ability to inhibit the formation of reactive species (RS) induced by sodium azide and to scavenge the synthetic radicals 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2-azinobis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS