A Review of Antidepressant Effects and Mechanisms of Three CommonHerbal Medicines: Panax ginseng, Bupleurum chinense, and Gastrodiaelata

OBJECTIVES: Blume (GEB), and reviewed the mechanisms underlying their antidepressant properties to provide a reference for the development of antidepressants and clinical medications. METHODS: An extensive range of medicinal, clinical, and chemistry databases and search engines were used for our literature search. We searched the literature using certain web literature search engines, including Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), and Web of Science. RESULTS: . Clinical investigations revealed that single or combined treatment of these medicines improved certain depressive symptoms. Antidepressant mechanisms are summarized based on this research. CONCLUSION: The antidepressant mechanism of these three medicines includes but is not limited to ameliorating inflammation within the brain, reversing the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis (HPA) system hyperfunction, inhibiting monoamine neurotransmitters reuptake, anti-neuron apoptosis and preventing neurotoxicity, and regulating depressive-related pathways such as the BDNF pathway and the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway.