As a valuable medicinal herb and spice, agarwood is widely used in the fields of daily chemistry, traditional medicine, religion and literary collection. It mainly contains sesquiterpenes and 2-(2-phenylethyl)chromones, which are often used to soothe the body and mind, relieve anxiety, act as an antidepressant and treat insomnia and other mental disorders, presenting a good calming effect. This paper reviews the chemical composition of the essential oils of different sources of agarwood, as well as the progress of research on the sedative and tranquilizing pharmacological activity and mechanism of action of agarwood essential oil (AEO), and then analyzes the current problems of AEO research and its application prospects in the treatment of mental diseases.

Benzoin is a pathologic exudation produced by plants of the family Styrax. It is secreted by traumatic resin ducts after injury, which are derived from parenchymal cells in secondary xylem by schizolysigeny. Some 63 chemical constituents have been isolated and identified from this resin, including balsamic acid esters, lignans and terpenoids. It has a long history of applications, including as incense along with olibanum, a flavor enhancer in the food industry, materials in the daily chemistry industry as well as therapeutic uses. Up to now, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) have been widely used in qualitative and quantitative analysis of benzoin. Other technologies, including near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIR), proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry (PTR-ToF-MS) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), have also been used to distinguish different resins. Herein, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of the production process, phytochemistry, traditional uses and quality control of benzoin and looks to the future for promoting its further research and applications.