Negative symptoms account for a clinical dimension of schizophrenia. They are partly the cause of functional disability of this disease. Clinical experience shows that antipsychotics have little or no effect on these symptoms. The aim of this review is to gather existing data on the treatment of negative symptoms with antidepressants. The combination of antipsychotics with antidepressants is a therapeutic strategy commonly used for the treatment of these symptoms. The pro-dopaminergic effects of antidepressants explain their effectiveness on negative symptoms. There are many comparative, randomized, controlled studies evaluating the efficacy of antidepressant associated with antipsychotic for the treatment of negative symptoms. Furthermore three meta-analyses have been conducted. The overall results suggest that the use of antidepressants may contribute to clinical improvement of negative symptoms in schizophrenia. The limitations of these studies are the small number of patients included and the definition and assessment of negative symptoms. The existing scales are not sufficiently discriminating. Further research using new measurement tools should help refine these results.