抑郁症是一种常见的慢性严重性精神疾病，以连续且长期的情绪低落、睡眠障碍、快感缺失、精神萎靡为主要临床表现，严重影响人们的日常工作与生活。该病发病机制尚不明确，目前药物治疗仍是抑郁症的主要治疗方法，其中合成类第二代抗抑郁药物是临床治疗抑郁症的首选，但存在不良反应大、且靶点单一、起效时间长、易产生耐药性等缺点。近年来，随着社会与医学界对抑郁症防治工作的重视，采用中医药治疗抑郁症的探索与研究逐渐增多。多项研究表明，中医药可通过调节单胺神经递质浓度、下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴功能亢进、脑源性神经营养因子（BDNF）、炎症细胞因子、脑-肠轴等分子机制发挥抗抑郁作用。从经典复方、中药药对、单味中药3个方面，归纳总结近年来中医药治疗抑郁症的研究进展，以期为深入研究中医药防治抑郁症的作用机制及发现高效且安全的中药提供参考。

Depression is a common chronic severe mental illness. The main clinical manifestations are continuous and long-term depression, sleep disorders, anhedonia, and mental malaise, which seriously affect people's daily work and life. The pathogenesis of the disease is still unclear. At present, drug therapy is still the main treatment method for depression. Among them, synthetic second-generation antidepressants are the first choice for clinical treatment of depression, but there are toxic and side effects, single target, long onset time, easy to produce drug resistance and other shortcomings. In recent years, with the emphasis on the prevention and treatment of depression in the social and medical circles, the exploration and research on the treatment of depression with traditional Chinese medicine has gradually increased. A number of studies have shown that traditional Chinese medicine can exert antidepressant effects by regulating the concentration of monoamine neurotransmitters, the hyperactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), inflammatory cytokines, brain-gut axis and other molecular mechanisms. This article summarizes the research progress of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of depression in recent years from three aspects: Classical compound prescription, Chinese medicine pair and single Chinese medicine, in order to further study traditional Chinese medicine.

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辽宁省自然科学基金资助项目（2022-NLTS-13-05）；广东省自然科学基金项目（2021A1515011485）；沈阳市中青年科技创新人才培育专项（RC230077）