Objective: To explore the antidepressant-like effect of a traditional Chinese medicine

Banxia Xiexin Tang(BXT). Method: One hundred and twenty mice were divided into five groups(n=24)

such as control group

fluoxetine(FLU) group

BXT(50

100

200 mg·kg-1) groups. The behavior of each group in open field test(OFT

n=8)

tail suspension test(TST

n=8) and forced swimmig test(FST

n=8) was recorded. The following parameters were evaluated:the number of horizontal squares

number of rearings and total score for OFT

the latency to the first bout of immobility and duration of immobile time during the last 4 min of the 6-min trial for TST and FST. Result: FLU and BXT decreased the duration of immobile time during the last 4 min of the 6-min trial in both TST and FST

and the latency to the first bout of immobility in FST

however

had no effect on OFT activcity

such as number of horizontal squares and number of rearings. Conclusion: BXT has a good antidepressant-like effect on mice depression model.