Neural plasticity and depression treatment

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders, which can lead to a variety of emotional problems and even suicide at its worst. As this neuropsychiatric disorder causes the patients to suffer a lot and function poorly in everyday life, it is imposing a heavy burden on the affected families and the whole society. Several hypotheses have been proposed to elucidate the pathogenesis of depression, such as the genetic mutations, the monoamine hypothesis, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis hyperactivation, the inflammation and the neural plasticity changes. Among these models, neural plasticity can occur at multiple levels from brain regions, cells to synapses structurally and functionally during development and in adulthood. In this review, we summarize the recent progresses (especially in the last five years) on the neural plasticity changes in depression under different organizational levels and elaborate different treatments for depression by changing the neural plasticity. We hope that this review would shed light on the etiological studies for depression and on the development of novel treatments.