Background: Medicinal plants are continuously used to manage epilepsy and other neurological isorders. They provide major promising targets in pursuit of new drugs and lead compounds that are affffordable, available and accessible to treat the debilitating neurological condition. Several experimental models employed to screen for seizures in laboratory animals provide benefificial information concerning diagnoses, treatment and possible prevention of the disease. This review aims to identify medicinal plants used in the management of epilepsy in Nigeria and to explore pharmacological basis to support their ethnobotanical claims.

Methods: Literature searches of relevant articles in electronic databases including PubMed, African journal online, Google Scholar and ScienceDirect databases were carried out, and information about how these medicinal plants are used traditionally in the management of epilepsy and other diseases in Nigeria were also obtained. Only studies conducted within Nigeria on medicinal plants tested for seizures and epilepsy between 2000 and 2022 were included.

Results: We identifified sixty-eight (68) medicinal plants spanning across several families majorly Agavaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Annonaceae, Apocynaceae, Asteraceae, Bignoniaceae, Burseraceae, Compositae, Convolvulaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Lamiaceae, Leguminosae, Loranthaceae, Moraceae and Rubiaceae, that have been reported to contain bioactive compounds active against seizures using various pharmacological screening models. Plants that have not been fully studied and their main mechanisms of action not ascertained were recorded. We also identifified those plants with unknown active constituents responsible for their activity. The review also identifified potential medicinal plants for future studies of new as well as alternative therapies for the management of epilepsy and other neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.

Conclusions: This review provided evidence on the use of medicinal plants in the management of epilepsy and possibly rationalized the use of these plant extracts as alternatives in treating seizures and epilepsy.