Sun Lina, Sun Qingshan, Qi Jinshun
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Rev Neurosci. 2017 Oct 26;28(7):693-703. doi: 10.1515/revneuro-2016-0076.
Depression is a prevalent devastating mental disorder that affects the normal life of patients and brings a heavy burden to whole society. Although many efforts have been made to attenuate depressive/anxiety symptoms, the current clinic antidepressants have limited effects. Scientists have long been making attempts to find some new strategies that can be applied as the alternative antidepressant therapy. Exercise, a widely recognized healthy lifestyle, has been suggested as a therapy that can relieve psychiatric stress. However, how exercise improves the brain functions and reaches the antidepressant target needs systematic summarization due to the complexity and heterogeneous feature of depression. Brain plasticity, especially adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus, is an important neurophysiology to facilitate animals for neurogenesis can occur in not only humans. Many studies indicated that an appropriate level of exercise can promote neurogenesis in the adult brains. In this article, we provide information about the antidepressant effects of exercise and its implications in adult neurogenesis. From the neurogenesis perspective, we summarize evidence about the effects of exercise in enhancing neurogenesis in the hippocampus through regulating growth factors, neurotrophins, neurotransmitters and metabolism as well as inflammations. Taken together, a large number of published works indicate the multiple benefits of exercise in the brain functions of animals, particularly brain plasticity like neurogenesis and synaptogenesis. Therefore, a new treatment method for depression therapy can be developed by regulating the exercise activity.
抑郁症是一种普遍存在的、具有破坏性的精神障碍，它影响患者的正常生活，并给整个社会带来沉重负担。尽管人们已经做出了许多努力来减轻抑郁/焦虑症状，但目前临床上的抗抑郁药效果有限。长期以来，科学家们一直在尝试寻找一些新的策略，以作为替代抗抑郁疗法应用。运动是一种被广泛认可的健康生活方式，已被建议作为一种可以缓解精神压力的疗法。然而，由于抑郁症的复杂性和异质性，运动如何改善大脑功能并达到抗抑郁目标需要系统总结。大脑可塑性，尤其是海马体中的成年神经发生，是一种重要的神经生理学现象，它有助于动物（不仅人类）进行神经发生。许多研究表明，适当水平的运动可以促进成年大脑中的神经发生。在本文中，我们提供了有关运动的抗抑郁作用及其在成年神经发生中的意义的信息。从神经发生的角度，我们总结了运动通过调节生长因子、神经营养因子、神经递质、代谢以及炎症来增强海马体神经发生的证据。综上所述，大量已发表的研究表明运动对动物大脑功能有多种益处，特别是对神经发生和突触形成等大脑可塑性方面。因此，可以通过调节运动活动来开发一种新的抑郁症治疗方法。
