Endocannabinoids modulate mood.

Mood disorders, depressive episodes, and other negative mood disturbances are highly prevalent forms of mental illness that can lead to suicide, especially in the absence of psychotherapy and/or pharmacotherapy. Current pharmacotherapeutic options for mood disorders are unimpressive in clinical practice, promoting only minor improvement in affective symptoms while resulting in often intolerable cognitive and somatic side effects, leading to poor patient adherence to drug regimens. Currently, commonly-prescribed antidepressants manipulate the same neurotransmitter systems (dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin) targeted by earlier generations of these drugs (e.g., monoamine oxidase inhibitors, monoamine and indoleamine reuptake inhibitors, tricyclic antidepressants) only with improved system specificity. However, there exists a clear need to explore alternative neurochemical systems for use in the pharmacotherapy of mood disorders. One such system is the endogenous cannabinoid system, whose role in mood modulation is explored in this review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]