Depressive disorders: prevalence, costs and theories -- Traditional and novel possible targets for antidepressant drugs -- Cell-based systems of depression: An overview -- Animal models of depression -- Prevalence of use of herbal medicines and complementary and alternative medicine in Europe -- Medicinal plants of former USSR used for treatment of depression -- Chinese herbal medicine used against depression in China -- antidepressant medicinal plants and compounds used in traditional medicines in North America -- antidepressant plant species from the Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP) -- Oceania: antidepressant medicinal plants -- Novel drug delivery systems for herbal antidepressants -- Future strategies for depression treatment

This book is written for researchers, undergraduate students and postgraduate students, physicians and traditional medicine practitioners who develop research in the field of neurosciences, phytochemistry and ethnopharmacology or can be useful for their practice. Topics discussed include the description of depression, its biochemical causes, the targets of antidepressant drugs, animal and cell models commonly used in the research of this pathology, medicinal plants and bioactive compounds with antidepressant activity used in traditional medicine, advances in nanotechnology for drug delivery to the brain and finally the future challenges for researchers studying this pathology