Research Progress on Antidepressant Pathway and Active Ingredients of Xiaoyaosan and Its Analogous Prescriptions / 中国实验方剂学杂志

ABSTRACT

Depression is a psychiatric disease that seriously affects human life in the context of rapid social development and increased living pressure, and brings serious healthproblems and economic burdens to human society.Traditional Chinese medicine has a long history in the treatment of depression, and Xiaoyaosan has been repeatedly confirmed as a classic prescription for the intervention in depression, but its antidepressant mechanism and its active ingredients are still unclear.Through the search of China Knowledge Network(CNKI) and PubMed database, the literature and data on the clinical and mechanism research of Xiaoyaosan and its analogous prescriptions on depression in the past 10 years are systematically sorted out.It is found that Xiaoyao San and its analogous prescriptions are mainly focusing on the following aspects regulating hypothalamic-pituitary-gonad, hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, affecting 5-hydroxytryptamine(5-HT), norepinephrine(NE) neurotransmitters in hippocampus, interfering with inflammatory reaction process, modulating the BDNF/CREB signaling pathway, regulating intestinal flora and gastrointestinal function, regulating endothelial window foramen of hepatic sinus, repairing chronic stress-induced blood-brain barrier permeability, affecting autophagy to reduce neuronal apoptosis, and regulating the leukoplakia-nuclear adrenal gland (LC-NE) system to play an antidepressant role.The main active ingredient including, saikosaponin A which could down-regulate interleukin expression level, saikosaponin D which alleviates HPA axis dysfunction, quercetin which inhibits corticotropin-releasing-factor(CRF) mRNA expression, paeoniflorin which regulates neurotransmitters, and paeoni lactone which inhibits hyperfunction of HPA axis Glycosides, reduce inflammatory cytokines, atractylenolide I, atractylenolide Il, atractylenolide Ill, which could reduce the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokine mRNA and inhibit NF-κB activated, curcumin which could play the neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory and antioxidant roles, L-menthol which could suppress the HPA axis overactivation, liquiritin isoliquiritin which could regulate the monoamine neurotransmitters, and isoliquiritigenin which could inhibit the monoamine oxidase.