## 3 Results and Discussion
### Bioactivities
#### 3.2.1 Antioxidant Activity
First, the most relevant of them, which can be directly associated with neurodegenerative diseases, is the effect of acetylcholinesterase. This enzyme is able to metabolize acetylcholine, and its inhibition will increase this neurotransmitter in the synaptic cleft. The activity is expected to increase cerebral functions [37], which can contribute to delaying the development of neurodegenerative diseases. All the flower extracts showed the ability to inactivate acetylcholinesterase, lipase and \(\alpha\)-glucosidase enzymes (Figure 7). Despite all the concentrations of the extracts being able to inhibit the acetylcholinesteraseenzyme, the most effective, with values between 44.1 and 49.16 ug/mL, was correlated with the EF maturation stage. Even using different _Acacia mearnsii_ material (bark rich in tannin compounds), [PERSON] and [PERSON] [38] also verified similar results for lipase and glucosidase inhibition. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline  & **Site** & **Maturation** & & \\  & **(S)** & **Status (M)** & **S \(\times\) M** & **Residual** \\ \hline FRAP EC50 (mg/mL) & n.s. & 54.3 *** & n.s. & 45.7 \\ DPPH EC50 (mg/mL) & 10.0 *** & 83.3 *** & n.s. & 6.7 \\ \hline \end{tabular}  
MS—maturation status, EF—early flower, MF—mid flower, LF—late flower; n.s. for \(p\) > 0.05, * 0.01 \(<p<\) 0.05, ** 0.001 \(<p<\) 0.01, *** \(p<\) 0.001.  
\end{table} 
Table 2: Percentage of variance obtained in a two-way ANOVA (factor 1: site (S) and factor 2: maturation status (M)) of the antioxidant activity parameters for the flower’s extracts. Figure 6: Antioxidant activity ((**a**) FRAP EC50 and (**b**) DPPH EC50) of _A. dealbeta_ flowers extracts with different maturation stages with a mixture of 50/50% (_v_/_e_) ethanol/water from two central regions of Portugal. A—region A, B—region B; EF—early flower, MF—mid flower, LF—late flower. Different lowercase letters (a, b, c) denote significant differences between values (Tukey’s test; \(p<\) 0.05). The flowers harvested in region A had a higher value of inhibition capacity for all the enzymes and this difference represented 51.9% of the total variation for acetylcholinesterasecholinesteraseerase inhibition, 25.7% for lipase and without effect for 13.6% for \(\alpha\)-glucosidase (Table 3). The maturation status (Table 3), once again, was also of key importance, with a higher variability attributed to these factor (27.7% of the total variation for acetylcholinesterasecholinesteraseerase, 52.6% of the total variation for lipase and 68.5% of the total variation for \(\alpha\)-glucosidase). The importance associated with these three enzymes is the added value in the bioactivity, for instance, for acetylcholinesterase \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c} \hline \hline  & **Site** & **Maturation** & \(\mathbf{S\times M}\) & **Residual** \\  & **(S)** & **Status (M)** & & \\ \hline ACET (\(\mathrm{\mu g}\)/mL) & 51.9 *** & 27.7 *** & 7.6 ** & 12.9 \\ Lipase (\(\mathrm{\mu g}\)/mL) & 25.7 *** & 52.6 *** & n.s. & 21.7 \\ GLUC (\(\mathrm{\mu g}\)/mL) & n.s. & 68.5 * & n.s. & 31.5 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Variance percentages obtained in a two-way ANOVA of enzyme inhibitory activity of \(A\). _dealbata_ flowers. Figure 7: Enzyme inhibitory activity of \(A\). _dealbata_ flowers’ hydroethanolic extracts with different maturation stages for **(a)** acetylcholinesterasecholinesteraseerase, **(b)** lipase and **(c)**\(\alpha\)-glucosidase activities. A—region A, B—region B; EF—early flower, MF—mid flower, LF—late flower. Different lowercase letters (a, b, c) denote significant differences between values (Tukey’s test; \(p<0.05\)).