Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a subtype of Premenstrual syndrome with high prevalence in women during their reproductive life. It includes physical symptoms such as breast tenderness, headache as well as serious emotional symptoms such as anxiety, depression and irritability. These symptoms are menstrual specific, they appear before menstruation and disappear within a week after it ends. PMDD threatens the health of female patients all over the world, In The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder(Fifth edition ed,DSM-5）, PMDD is identified as one of the five types of depression. At present, studies on the pathological mechanism of PMDD mainly focus on hormone and receptor expression, which is the theoretical basis of the animal model establishment, as well. Animal model that can model after clinical symptoms of human beings is a very important to connect basic research to clinical research, which is also crucial to explore the pathogenesis and develop appropriate drugs. Although many kinds of animal models of PMDD have been used in experimental studies, there are still many limitations, which resulting in a barrier to further investigation of PMDD. Therefore, this review arranged the known pathogenesis research of PMDD and discuss the existing animal models of PMDD, aims to provide reference for PMDD related mechanism research and drug development.