• Herbal Formula Science
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.77-93
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• 2004

Depression is a sort of mental disorder which is very common. To treat depression, many drugs such as TCA, MAOI are developed and used. 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 diseases not only physical but also mental and have less side effects. therefore, it has been thoght the need to develop herbal medicine with antidepressant effect. The purpose of this study was to reseach antidepressant effect and influence on monoamines of chunwangboshimdan thought to have antidepressant according to ancient medical book- donguibogam- and recent reports. We used 'forced swimming test(FST)' to know antidepressant effect of chunwangboshimdan and HPLC to check the influence on monoamines and their metabolites(norepinephrine, dopamine, DOPAC, HVA, serotonin, 5-HIAA) of chunwangboshimdan after 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, chunwang boshimdan had a significant antidepressant effect. In the study of influence on monoamines by HPLC, chunwangboshimdan mainly increased dopamine among monoamines and their metabolites(norepinephrine, dopamine, DOPAC, HVA, serotonin, 5-HIAA) significantly in 4 parts of rat's brain above-mentioned. Calculated by turnover ratio formulae of monoamine, chunwangboshimdan has more results than Imipramine. These results suggest that chunwangboshimdan has antidepressant effect that is related with the increase of monoamines by suppressing their metabolism as its mechanism.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.89-100
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• 2018

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation method that delivers 1-2 mA of current to the scalp. Several clinical studies have been conducted to confirm the therapeutic effect of major depressive disorder (MDD) patients with tDCS. Some studies have shown tDCS's antidepressant effect, while the others showed conflicting results in antidepressant effects. Our aim of this review is to understand the biological bases of tDCS's antidepressant effect and review the results of studies on tDCS's antidepressant effect. For the review and search process of MDD treatment using tDCS, the US National Library of Medicine search engine PubMed was used. In this review, we discuss the biological mechanism of tDCS's antidepressant effect and the existing published literature including meta-analysis, systematic review, control trial, open studies, and case reports of antidepressant effects and cognitive function improvement in patients with MDD are reviewed. We also discuss the appropriate tDCS protocol for MDD patients, factors predictive of response to tDCS treatment, the disadvantages of tDCS in MDD treatment, and side effects.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.34-41
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• 2002

Background:Since serotonin neurotrasnmission plays an important role in the pathophysiology of depression, the drug that acts on serotonin transporter can be an effective antidepressant. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between serotonin transporter polymorphisms(5-HTTLPR) and the long-term effect of the antidepressant treatment. Method:The 175 depressive patients, who met DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder or dysthymic disorder were enrolled into three year study. The genotypes of the patients were investigated by polymerase chain reaction of genomic DNA with promoter regions of the serotonin transporter gene. The patients were assessed by the Clinical Global Impression Scale, at the 1st visit, 8th week, 16th week, 1st year, 2nd and 3rd year after the antidepressant treatment. Result:The genotypes of 138 patients were investigated and 128 of them finished this 1st year study and 107 remained in the study after 2-year treatment, and, 97 completed this 3-year study. The therapeutic response of each subset was not different at 8th, 16th week, but the subset with homozygote(l/l) of long variant showed a better antidepressant therapeutic response than heterozygote(l/s). The heterozygote(l/s) showed a better response than the subset with homozygote(s/s) of short variant at 1st, 2nd and 3rd year after the antidepressant treatment in CGI-global improvement score. Conclusion:This result shows that the serotonin transporter polymorphism may be related to the long-term effect of antidepressant treatment and there may be also ethnic difference.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.99-106
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• 2009

Objectives : The antidepressant effect of the subchronic administration of the methanolic extract of wild ginseng(WG) was investigated compared with that of cultivated ginseng(CG, panax ginseng) extract. Methods : To assess the antidepressant effect of the ginseng extracts, tail suspension test(TST) was executed in mice after daily administration of WG or CG extract for five consecutive days. Results : The WG extract at daily dose of 600mg/kg significantly reduced the total duration of immobility in the TST, whereas there was no significant reduction at daily dose of 300mg/kg WG and 600mg/kg CG. There were no individual differences between experimental groups in open field test (OFT) to evaluate psychostimulant effects of WG or CG extract. In the high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) analysis of the extracts, it was found that WG included four times more ginsenoside Rg1 and Re, three times more Rf, and six times more Rb1 and Rc than CG. Conclusions : It is suggested that WG extract has stronger antidepressant effect than CG extract, which means it includes more antidepressant compounds than CG.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.71-88
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• 2019

Objectives: The present study aims to review the antidepressant effect of herbal medicines reported in Korean local journals. Methods: We searched in electronic databases (Koreantk, KISS, OASIS, NDSL) for studies, published in Korean national journals, that assessed herbal medicine effect of depression model. The search term was 'depression' in the abstract or whole text. Depression model, herbal material, experimental results, mechanisms were extracted. Results: We included 43 articles in which 38 studies were in vitro experiments, and the rest 5 were in vivo experiments. The most common experiment subject model was a rat and the most widely used method to induce depression was Despair behavior test. 21 studies used simple herbal medicines, and 22 studies used complex herbal medication. Glycyrrhizae Radix was the most commonly used herbal material to improve depression model. The most common mechanisms of herbal medicine with antidepressant effect were inhibition of Monoamine activation mechanism and depression related neurohormone secretion. Conclusions: Herbal medicines may be a promising resource for treating depression.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.226-232
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• 2001

The pharmacotherapy of depression has reduced morbidity and improved outcome for many depressive patients. A wide range of classical and new antidepressants are available for their treatment. However, 30-40% of all patients do not respond sufficiently to the initial treatment and present adverse effects. Pharmacogenetics studies the genetic basis of an individual's ability to respond to pharmacotherapy. Recently, some reports on serotonin transporter gene polymorphisms and their influence on the response to antidepressive therapy provide an interesting diagnostic tool in assessing the chances of response to antidepressants. We also investigated the relationship between serotonin transprter polymorphisms(5-HTTLPR) and the long-term effect of the antidepressant treatment. 128 depressive patients were enrolled into 2nd year study. The therapeutic response of each subset was not different at 8th, 16th week, but the subset with homozygote(l/l) of long variant showed a better therapeutic response to antidepressant than the heterozygote(l/s) of long and short variant, which showed a better therapeutic response than the subset with homozygote (s/s) of short variant at 1st year and 2nd year after the antidepressant treatment. This result shows that the serotonin transporter polymorphisms may be related to the long-term effect of antidepressant treatment. The potential for pharmacogenomics, the use of genetic information to guide pharmacotherapy and improve outcome by providing individualized treatment decisions, has gained increasing attention. pharmacogenomics will contribute to individualize drug choice by using genotype to predict positive clinical outcomes, adverse reactions, and levels of drug metabolism. Personalized medicine, the use of marker-assisted diagnosis and targeted therapies derived from an individual molecular profile, will impact the antidepressant therapy and this approach will replace the traditional trial-and-error practice of medicine.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.321-329
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• 2013

Rodents exposed to a 15-min pretest swim in the forced swimming test (FST) exhibit prolonged immobility in a subsequent 5-min test swim, and antidepressant treatment before the test swim reduces immobility. At present, neuronal circuits recruited by antidepressant before the test swim remain unclear, and also less is known about whether antidepressants with different mechanisms of action could influence neural circuits differentially. To reveal the neural circuits associated with antidepressant effect in the FST, we injected desipramine or citalopram 0.5 h, 19 h, and 23 h after the pretest swim and observed changes in c-Fos expression in rats before the test swim, namely 24 h after the pretest swim. Desipramine treatment alone in the absence of pretest swim was without effect, whereas citalopram treatment alone significantly increased the number of c-Fos-like immunoreactive cells in the central nucleus of the amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, where this pattern of increase appears to be maintained after the pretest swim. Both desipramine and citalopram treatment after the pretest swim significantly increased the number of c-Fos-like immunoreactive cells in the ventral lateral septum and ventrolateral periaqueductal gray before the test swim. These results suggest that citalopram may affect c-Fos expression in the central nucleus of the amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis distinctively and raise the possibility that upregulation of c-Fos in the ventral lateral septum and ventrolateral periaqueductal gray before the test swim may be one of the probable common mechanisms underlying antidepressant effect in the FST.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.253-259
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• 2010

Artemisia capillaris Thunb. is widely used in the herbal medicine field. This study describes the antidepressant effect of a flavonoid (chlorogenic acid) isolated from the Artemisia capillaris Thunb. The expression of the pituitary gland and hypothalamic POMC mRNA or plasma ${\beta}$-endorphin levels were increased by extract of Artemisia capillaris Thunb. or its flavoniod administered orally. In addition, antidepressant activity was studied using the tail suspension test (TST), the forced swimming test (FST) and the rotarod test in a chronically restrained immobilization stress group in mice. After restraint stress (2 h/day for 14 days), animals were kept in a cage for 14 days without any further stress, but with drugs. Mice were fed with a diet supplemented for 14 days and during the behavioral test period with chlorogenic acid (30 mg/kg/day). POMC mRNA or the plasma ${\beta}$-endorphin level was increased by the extract of Artemisia capillaris Thunb. and its flavoniod. In addition, the immobility time in TST and FST was significantly reduced by chlorogenic acid. In the rotarod test, the riding time remained similar to that of the control group at 15 rpm. Our results suggest that the flavonoid (chlorogenic acid) isolated from Artemisia capillaris Thunb. shows a potent antidepressant effect.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.252-259
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• 2006

Sexual dysfunction is a relatively common adverse effect in the use of antidepressants. The sexual side effects may result in a lack of compliance with the prescribed antidepressants. The author reviewed the prevalence and updated treatment for the antidepressant-induced adverse effects focusing on sexual dysfunction. The incidence of sexual dysfunction is reported to exceed more than 50% especially with SSRIs. In order to obtain a quantified baseline and as an ongoing evaluation tool, clinicians may use some of the established questionnaires and validated instruments such as the Arizona Sexual Experience scale and Changes in Sexual Functioning Questionnaire. Clinicians should be aware that delayed ejaculation and orgasm, symptoms most frequently associated with antidepressants, are not usually associated with depression itself. Although many antidotes have been proposed, few have been subjected to double-blind trials. Some evidences have suggested that bupropion and buspiron may be the effective antidotes for SSRI induced sexual dysfunction. Additional trials will be requied to define what role, if any, bupropion and buspiron might have in the treatment of SSRI-induced sexual side effects. The available evidence is rather limited, with only small number of trials assessing each strategy. While further randomized data is awaited, for men with antidepressant induced erectile dysfunction, the addition of sidenafil or tadalafil may appear to be an effective strategy.