Wang Pu, Liu Changhong, Liu Lei, Zhang Xingyi, Ren Bingzhong, Li Bingjin
Life Sciences institute, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China 130024.
Curr Neuropharmacol. 2015;13(4):524-35. doi: 10.2174/1570159x1304150831120650.
Ghrelin, one of the brain-gut peptides, stimulates food-intake. Recently, ghrelin has also shown to play an important role in depression treatment. However, the mechanism of ghrelin's antidepressant-like actions is unknown. On the other hand, sex differences in depression, and the fluctuation of estrogens secretion have been proved to play a key role in depression. It has been reported that women have higher level of ghrelin expression, and ghrelin can stimulate estrogen secretion while estrogen acts as a positive feedback mechanism to up-regulate ghrelin level. Ghrelin may be a potential regulator of reproductive function, and estrogen may have additional effect in ghrelin's antidepressantlike actions. In this review, we summarize antidepressant-like effects of ghrelin and estrogen in basic and clinical studies, and provide new insight on ghrelin's effect in depression.
胃饥饿素是脑肠肽之一，可刺激食物摄入。最近，胃饥饿素在抑郁症治疗中也显示出重要作用。然而，胃饥饿素抗抑郁样作用的机制尚不清楚。另一方面，抑郁症中的性别差异以及雌激素分泌的波动已被证明在抑郁症中起关键作用。据报道，女性胃饥饿素表达水平较高，胃饥饿素可刺激雌激素分泌，而雌激素则作为一种正反馈机制上调胃饥饿素水平。胃饥饿素可能是生殖功能的潜在调节因子，雌激素可能在胃饥饿素的抗抑郁样作用中具有额外作用。在本综述中，我们总结了胃饥饿素和雌激素在基础和临床研究中的抗抑郁样作用，并对胃饥饿素在抑郁症中的作用提供了新的见解。
