• Herbal Formula Science
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.185-196
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• 2003

Depression is very common mental disorder, so many people suffer from it, which makes the treatment of depression important. Many drugs to treat depression were developed and being prescripted. But they have a lot of side effects, so it needs to develop drugs without side effects or with less side effects. Herbal medicines have been used to treat not only physical disorder but also mental disorder and it has been reported that they have less side effects. Therefore, there is the need to discover and use herbal medicine with antidepressant effect. The purpose of this study was to reseach Antidepressant effect of Licium chinense Mill. and its influence on serotonin and its metabolite of depression model rats. We used 'forced swimming test(FST)' to know antidepressant effect of Licium chinense Mill. and HPLC to check the influence on serotonin and its metabolite(5-HIAA) of Licium chinense Mill. after rats' brains were divided into cerebral cortex, striatum, hypothalamus and hippocampus. The results were obtained as follows : In the study of antidepressant effect by 'forced swimming test(FST)' method, Licium chinense Mill. had a significant antidepressant effect. In the study of influence on serotonin and 5-HIAA by HPLC, Licium chinense Mill. mainly increased serotonin and 5-HlAA of cerebral cortex and striatum signigficantly among 4 parts of rat's brain above-mentioned. These results suggest that Licium chinense Mill. has antidepressant effect that may be related with the increase of serotonin and its metabolite as its mechanism, but more precise experiments will be need to prove their relation.