Emotional disorders like anxiety and depression are responsible for considerable morbidity and mortality all over the world. Several antidepressant and anxiolytic medications are available for the treatment of anxiety and depression. However, a significant number of patients either do not respond to these medications or respond inadequately. Hence, there is a need to identify novel targets for the treatment of anxiety and depression. In this review we focus on the renin angiotensin system (RAS) as a potential target for the treatment of these disorders. We review work that has evaluated the effects of various compounds targeting the RAS on anxiety- and depression-like behaviors. Further, we suggest future work that must be carried out to fully exploit the RAS for the treatment of anxiety and depression. The RAS provides an attractive target for both the identification of novel anxiolytic and antidepressant medications and/or for enhancing the efficacy of currently available medications used for the treatment of anxiety and depression.

诸如焦虑和抑郁之类的情绪失调导致全世界相当高的发病率和死亡率。几种抗抑郁药和抗焦虑药可用于治疗焦虑症和抑郁症。但是，很多患者对这些药物没有反应或反应不足。因此，需要确定用于治疗焦虑和抑郁的新靶标。在这篇综述中，我们集中于肾素血管紧张素系统（RAS）作为治疗这些疾病的潜在靶标。我们审查了评估针对RAS的各种化合物对焦虑和抑郁样行为的影响的工作。此外，我们建议未来必须开展的工作，以充分利用RAS来治疗焦虑症和抑郁症。