A Review on Antidepressant Activity of Various Plants

Depressive disorder, or depression, is a common mental health condition and is characterizedby a low mood or loss of pleasure or interest in activities for long periods of time. It is a complexneuropsychiatric disorder, that affects the life style and has been classified and treated in avariety of ways. Now a days, number of synthetic antidepressant drugs are available, thesedrugs have limited effect and associated with more side effects as well as chronic toxicity. Toobtain better therapeutic benefits and minor adverse reactions, search for alternativeantidepressant from natural source i.e., herbal remedies, which were used traditionally, and aresafe on human health, is gaining global attention. Recently, it has been reported that the use ofpolyherbal formulation exhibit synergistic activity to achievement of maximum beneficialpotency as compared to single herb. Therefore, the objective of this review is to enlist medicinalherbs &plants which have antidepressant action using the various rodent models of depression.The multiple causing factors of depression are decreased levels of neurotransmitter in brainincluding noradrenalin, dopamine and serotonin. Therefore, these medicinal herbs restore thereduced levels of neurotransmitter in the brain either by inhibiting reuptake ofneurotransmitters or by inhibiting monoamine oxidase and treat mild to moderate depression.Antidepressants decrease the duration of immobility in the forced swim test in the rat and themouse and in the tail suspension test in the mouse.