Stress, depression, and hippocampus: from biochemistry to electrophysiology.

Major depressive disorder is a very common serious mental illness with increasing prevalence in the population. Its pathology includes biochemical, morphological, and electrophysiological changes in various brain areas. In spite of decades of extensive research pathophysiology of depression is still not sufficiently understood. When depression occurs just before or during pregnancy, it may have a detrimental effect on perinatal and/or postnatal brain development, affecting the offspring's behavior. An important role in the pathology of depression is the hippocampus as a center for cognition and memory. Here we review changes in morphology, biochemical, and electrical signaling caused by depression in first and second generation identified in various animal models.