BDNF and major depressive disorder: On the other hand, stimulation of the BDNF signaling pathway can enhance sucrose preference, anxiolytic-like activities, and related learning and memory in a variety of depression models (Yi et al., 2014; Quesseveur et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2017b), indicating that stimulating BDNF signaling exhibited strong neurobehavioral modulating effects.