A Critical Analysis of Medicinal plants for Anti-Depressant action with their Phyto-Constituent and Mechanism of Action

Depression or stress refers to a state of sad feelings and loss of interest in pleasurable activities characterized by retardation of thoughts and actions, appetite and weight changes, restlessness as well as in sleep disturbance. All the current evidences implicate alteration in the firing pattern of a subset of biogenic amines in the central nervous system. There are adequate number of synthetic drugs used to treat depression as standard treatment for clinically depressed patient, however only 30% of patients respond satisfactorily to the existing medicines and the remaining do not attain full recovery. Many scientists are investigating on herbal drugs for mitigating this disorder that shown antidepressant properties by virtue of synergistic effect of their phyto constituents. In this review article we emphasize to give an outline of certain medicinal plants with their constituents and mechanism of action which have been explored for their antidepressant action.