EFEITOS DO EXERCÍCIO FÍSICO NA VIA DA QUINURENINA QUANTO À MODULAÇÃO DA DEPRESSÃO: UMA REVISÃO SISTEMÁTICA

Depression affects more than 300 million people worldwide, and is now the leading cause of global disability. Thus, despite the availability of effective psychological and pharmacological treatments, it is necessary to understand the influence of physical exercise as an adjuvant treatment for depressive disorder. To carry out a systematic review on the effects of physical exercise on the kynurenine pathway in modulating depression. This is a systematic review of the literature, carried out through searches in several databases, including VHL, Cochrane Library, Cochrane Central, Scielo, Medline, PubMed and Psyinfo. The selected descriptors were "exercise", "kynurenine pathway" and "depression", combined using the Boolean operators AND OR to cover the search. The article selection period ranged from 2019 to 2024. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to ensure the relevance and quality of the selected studies, considering works in Portuguese, English and Spanish. Physical exercise influences the different stages of the kynurenine metabolic pathway, modulating the production of neuroactive and neuroprotective metabolites. Exercise promotes changes in the activity of enzymes responsible for converting tryptophan into kynurenine, influencing the balance between the neuroprotective and neurotoxic branches of this metabolic pathway. In this sense, the significant effects on the regulation of neuroinflammatory balance promote a reduction in the inflammatory response associated with depression. Physical exercise acts positively in reducing depressive symptoms, providing significant benefits in the mood, energy and motivation of affected individuals.