Depression is a common, persistent and serious mental disease in clinical practice, which can coexist with various systemic diseases and increase the burden of disease. The incidence of depression has increased year by year, which has become an important public health problem. It is imperative to increase the attention to the field of depression and improve its clinical diagnosis rate and cure rate. This article briefly reviews the latest progress in modern research on depression from three aspects: epidemiological characteristics, pathogenesis and treatment methods, in order to provide reference for clinical diagnosis and treatment of depression