Abstract
Depression represents a major public disease affecting nearly 2-5% of the population in recent years. Many types of antidepressant drugs are used to treat depression. Most of them, however, are not without side effects. Therefore, the search for new antidepressant-like foods or herbs without any side effects is deemed important. Here we introduce forced swimming test (FST), which is a rodent model widely used for the screening of antidepressant drugs. The FST demonstrated that extracts from Ginkgo biloba leaves used as a traditional Chinese herbal medicine for thousands years possess antidepressant-like effect. A perspective for prevention of depression is discussed with the strategy of foods and food factors.
