Focusing on new monoamine oxidase inhibitors: differently substituted coumarins as an interesting scaffold.

It is commonly accepted that monoamine oxidase (MAO) may play a critical role in the regulation of the central nervous system activity and contribute to the pathogenesis of human neurodegenerative and depressive disorders. This has encouraged an active research in the development of new drugs, MAO inhibitors, since they may represent an important advance in the treatment of complex diseases such as Alzheimer and Parkinson, which are becoming prevalent pathologies due to the increase of aging population of developed countries societies. Different research groups are intensively working in this area with the aim of finding new MAO selective inhibitors. Differently substituted coumarins have been synthesized and evaluated as MAO-A and MAO-B inhibitors. The purpose of this review is to summarize the findings reported in this area, particularly focuses on the coumarin scaffold.