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Animal Models of Depression

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Herbal Medicine in Depression

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Abstract

Stress is a concept related to biological responses produced in all living organisms when facing environmental changes. These biological responses allow them to adapt. Chronic stress is a major risk factor in the development of several chronic diseases that has a high social and economic impact in many countries. Within these diseases is depression. Through a better understanding of the neurobiology of stress and depressive episodes, better preventative therapies and antidepressants with fewer side effects may be developed. Animal models of chronic stress have provided very important information through the pathophysiology of depression-associated behaviors that are similar to the behavior of depressed patients. This chapter reviews several depression assays involving acute stress (e.g., forced swim test), models consisting of prolonged physical or social stress (e.g., social defeat), models of secondary depression, genetic models, and experiments designed to elucidate the mechanisms of antidepressant action. These paradigms are critically evaluated in relation to the disease, validity and replicability, the molecular insights that they, and their capacity to offer the next generation of therapeutics for depression.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the CYTED program (Action 112RT0460. “CORNUCOPIA” thematic network) for the support to the accomplishment of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dirección de Investigaciones en Neurociencias, Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Mexico, DF, Mexico

    Eva González-Trujano

  2. Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Oriente, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Metepec, Mexico

    Fabiola Domínguez

  3. Unidad de Investigación Médica en Enfermedades Nefrológicas, Hospital de Especialidades, Centro Médico Nacional, Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, 06720, Ciudad de México, Mexico

    Juan Manuel Gallardo, Julia J. Segura-Uribe & Sandra Orozco-Suárez

  4. Unidad de Investigación Médica en Farmacología, Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico, DF, Mexico

    Christian Guerra-Araiza

Authors
  1. Eva González-Trujano
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  2. Fabiola Domínguez
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  3. Juan Manuel Gallardo
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  4. Christian Guerra-Araiza
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  5. Julia J. Segura-Uribe
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  6. Sandra Orozco-Suárez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sandra Orozco-Suárez .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. REQUIMTE/LAQV Lab Pharm Dep Chem Fac Pha, University of Porto, City, Grande Porto, Portugal

    Clara Grosso

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González-Trujano, E., Domínguez, F., Gallardo, J.M., Guerra-Araiza, C., Segura-Uribe, J.J., Orozco-Suárez, S. (2016). Animal Models of Depression. In: Grosso, C. (eds) Herbal Medicine in Depression. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14021-6_4

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