〔Abstract〕 To explore the mechanism of cistanche deserticola ( meat cistanche) in treating Alzheimer ′s disease (AD) through network pharmacology , molecular docking , and animal experiments . Methods Effective components of meat cistanche were mined from the TCMSP database , and AD-related targets were filtered using the SwissTargetPrediction , DisGeNET , and GeneCards databases . The intersection of these targets was analyzed using protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks . Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrich- ment analyses were conducted via the Metascape database . Molecular docking of meat cistanche ′s active compo- nents with core targets was performed using AutoDock Vina. Based on network pharmacology predictions , an AD model was established using 8-month-old SAMP8 mice , with Morris water maze tests assessing learning and cogni- tive functions , Nissl staining observing hippocampal neuron morphology , and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays and Western blotting detecting the expression levels of cAMP signaling pathway-related proteins in hippocampal tis- sues . Results Network pharmacology analysis predicted that meat cistanche might act on 74 AD targets through 8 active components . Molecular docking showed high affinity of active components like acteoside with core targets such as ESR1 , BDNF , MAPK1 , and APP. KEGG analysis indicated involvement in pathways related to cancer , cAMP signaling , and AD . Animal experiments demonstrated that meat cistanche effectively improved learning and cognitive impairments in AD mice and alleviated hippocampal neuron damage . ELISA and Western blotting results indicated that meat cistanche significantly increased the expression levels of cAMP , PKA , P-CREB in the cAMP pathway and promoted the expression of downstream neurotrophic factor BDNF . Conclusion Meat cistanche can improve learning and cognitive disorders in AD model mice and may exert therapeutic effects on AD by up-regula- ting the cAMP signaling pathway and the expression of downstream BDNF protein targets , thereby improving hipp- ocampal neuron injury .