Depression is a disorder of unknown origin and it involves disturbance of many physiological processes. There are many mechanisms in depression including alterations in neurotrophic factors. It has been suggested in this review that an impairment of synaptic plasticity in specific areas of central nervous system, specifically in hippocampus can be an important factor in the pathophysiology of depression. Further, an abnormal neural plasticity may be related to alterations in the level of neurotrophic factors. In context with this, it can be suggested that there can be a connection between occurrences of depression with the disturbance of neurotrophic factors, raising great attention in the recent years. In the present review, it has been tried to explain the significance of insulin-like growth factor in depression by presenting the several important topics such as neurotrophic factors in depression, insulin like growth factor in central nervous system, insulin like growth factor receptor in depression, neurotrophic role of insulin like growth factor and correlation between insulin like growth factor and brain serotonin levels.

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