Antidepressant medicines can increase BDNF in the brain, which might help explain why they work to improve mood and thinking in people with depression.

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“showed that chronic antidepressant treatment reversed depressive-like behavior caused by chronic unpredictable stress-induced and increased BDNF mRNA expression in the granular cell layer of the dorsal hippocampus (independently of exposure to stressors). Using a different stress model, were able to normalize behavioral alterations in mice exposed to a social defeat stress protocol followed by chronic (but not acute) administration of imipramine They proposed a model in which chronic stress induces repression and chronic imipramine induces de-repression of the bdnf gene in the hippocampus through changes in the chromatin structure. In the case of the SZ, different studies have shown that the level of sBDNF correlates with cognitive performance in different domains. Despite the lack of consensus on whether basal sBDNF is increased or decreased in SZ patients, some studies have indicated a correlation between memory performance and sBDNF levels. Interestingly, there are evidences that pro-cognitive effects of pharmacological interventions in SZ could be mediated by BDNF. For example, have found that a 12-week chronic treatment with olanzapine produced an increase in BDNF plasma concentration. Moreover, BDNF concentration positively correlated with cognitive performance in a RBANS scale of memory.”