Many studies have been done on mice models to evaluate the antidepressant activity of different agents. Some studies were done by using combination of different agents to get the synergistic effects. Some combinations gave promising results in the treatment of depression.
In 2004, Silverstone and Silverstone reviewed the acute treatments for bipolar depression. Bipolar patients typically spent much more time in the depressive phase rather than the manic phase. To treat bipolar depression five groups of therapies are used.
They are anti-psychotics, antidepressants, lithium, anticonvulsants (lamotrigine, valproate, gabapentin, and carbamazepine) and other therapies (electroconvulsive therapy, benzodiazepines, and dopamine agonists).
Lamotrigine and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are very much effective in bipolar depression treatment (Silverstone and Silverstone, 2004).
In 2006, Dhingra and Sharma conducted a study to determine the antidepressant effect of aqueous extract of Glycyrrhiza glabra L. (Family: Fabaceae), commonly known as licorice on mice by using tail suspension test (TST) and forced swim test (FST). Separate groups of Swiss young male albino mice were treated with the extract of G.
glabra (75, 150, and 300 mg/kg) orally for seven successive days. The immobility times of mice in both TST and FST reduced significantly at the dose of 150 mg/kg of the extract. The efficacy of the licorice extract was incomparable to fluoxetine (20 mg/kg ii.p.) and imipramine (15 mg/kg ii.p.). They concluded that the licorice extract has antidepressant activity (Dhingra and Sharma, 006).
In 2015 Yan et al. performed acute behavioral tests including the tail suspension test (TST) and the forced swimming test (FST) to determine the antidepressant effect of Sanyuansan.
Sanyuansan is a compound recipe consisting of fish oil, Valeriana, and ginseng total saponins. They divided image C57BL/6 mice into five groups (n=5). The mice were treated with saline (20 mL/kg ), imipramine (30mg/kg) and Sanyuansan (225, 450, 900 mg/kg) orally. The immobility time of mice reduced significantly by Sanyuansan at doses of 225 mg/kg, 50 mg/kg, and 900 mg/kg compared with the saline-treated group in FST. In the TST only Sanyuansan at the dose of 900 mg/kg reduced immobility time in mice. these results suggested that Sanyuansan has antidepressant activity (Yan et al., 2015).
In 2015, Gupta et al. performed a study in mice model to determine the acute and chronic antidepressant activity of genistein in combination with amitriptyline. They divided the adult male albino mice into six groups (n=6) for the treatment with water, amitriptyline or genistein either in combination or alone for ten days. They performed the forced swim test (FST) and tails suspension test (TST). On day one and day iten immobility time recorded. Immobility time did not reduce significantly in acute treatment (P>0.05). The combination of amitriptyline and genistein reduced the immobility time significantly as compared to the control group.