title: The Antidepressant-like Effects of Estrogen-mediated Ghrelin.
abstract: Ghrelin, one of the brain-gut peptides, stimulates food-intake. Recently, ghrelin has also shown to play an important role in depression treatment. However, the mechanism of ghrelin's antidepressant-like actions is unknown. On the other hand, sex differences in depression, and the fluctuation of estrogens secretion have been proved to play a key role in depression. It has been reported that women have higher level of ghrelin expression, and ghrelin can stimulate estrogen secretion while estrogen acts as a positive feedback mechanism to up-regulate ghrelin level. Ghrelin may be a potential regulator of reproductive function, and estrogen may have additional effect in ghrelin's antidepressantlike actions. In this review, we summarize antidepressant-like effects of ghrelin and estrogen in basic and clinical studies, and provide new insight on ghrelin's effect in depression.
authors.forename: Pu
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Changhong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Xingyi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Bingzhong
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.affiliation: Life Sciences institute, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China 130024.
authors.forename: Bingjin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000928:Antidepressive Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004435:Eating / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D004967:Estrogens / Q000378:metabolism*; D054439:Ghrelin / Q000494:pharmacology*; D006801:Humans; D054440:Receptors, Ghrelin / Q000187:drug effects*; D012737:Sex Factors
chemical_list: D000928:Antidepressive Agents; D004967:Estrogens; D054439:Ghrelin; D054440:Receptors, Ghrelin