Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease that mainly manifests clinically as progressive functional impairments in cognition, memory, and language. With the accelerated transition toward an older population in China, the number of people suffering from AD in China is increasing. The exact pathogenesis of AD remains unclear, with current therapeutic strategies mainly limited to symptomatic treatments. Animal models are important tools for preclinical research, enabling explorations of molecular mechanisms, behavioral functions, and treatment strategies of diseases. Future mechanistic research and drug development of AD should involve the establishment of animal models that are consistent with clinical pathological characteristics. This review summarizes the AD animal models commonly used in research, providing details on the strains, age, modeling method and doses. It also discusses research on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) components and their pharmacodynamic mechanisms in related AD animal models, aiming to provide references for the development of new animal models and in-depth exploration of the specific pharmacological activities, targets, metabolic pathways, and clinical applications of each TCM component.