Psychiatric progress. The learned helplessness model of depression.

Attempts have been made to model certain human psychopathological states in the laboratory, with varying degrees of success. The animal model has emerged as an alternative to clinical studies in psychiatry because it is able to provide greater experimental control and allows the exercise of ethical discretion. Although numerous animal models of depression have been proposed in the literature, most, if not all, fail to mimic human depressive symptomatology; their main function is to act as selective screens for antidepressant drugs. The learned helplessness approach has been suggested as an animal analogue of depression because of its similarities to the human depressive state in terms of provocation, manifestation and treatment. Furthermore, the learned helplessness model, which was originally based on animal experimentation, has been shown to be reproducible in human subjects, a finding not observed with other animal models of depression. Although this model has been much criticized in the past, recent reformulation adds credence to it as a more valid analogue of human depression, given the additional cognitive constructs in depressed human subjects.