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Brain serotonin and norepinephrine after convulsions and reserpine 1
Author(s) -
Feighner J. P.,
Lao L.,
King Lucy J.,
Ross W. J.
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
journal of neurochemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.75
H-Index - 229
eISSN - 1471-4159
pISSN - 0022-3042
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-4159.1972.tb01407.x
Subject(s) - serotonin , reserpine , norepinephrine , medicine , endocrinology , convulsion , pons , dopamine , chemistry , epilepsy , psychiatry , receptor
D ecreased brain norepinephrine (S childkraut , 1969) and decreased brain serotonin (S haw , C amp and E ccleston , 1967; B ourne et al., 1968) have been implicated in current hypotheses about the psychiatric syndrome, depression. Reserpine, which causes depression in some people, depletes brain norepinephrine and serotonin and, possibly, replicates in laboratory animals some of the biochemical changes in brains of depressed patients. Electrically‐induced convulsions are an effective treatment of depression. There have been numerous studies of the effects of convulsive electrical stimulation on norepinephrine and serotonin in brains of laboratory animals. They have employed different schedules of administration of convulsions, short (minutes) or long (hours to days) periods after convulsion before killing the animals, and various methods of extraction and assay of the amines. Results have varied. For example, K ato , G ozsy , R oy and G roh (1967) found that a series of convulsions, administered daily for 11 days elevated whole brain serotonin but not norepinephrine. On the other hand, H inesley , N orton and A prison (1968) observed that a series of seven convulsions, one every other day, elevated norepinephrine only in cerebral hemispheres, whereas serotonin was elevated only in midbrain and pons‐medulla. Our present report is the first to deal with both norepinephrine and serotonin in animals given both serial injections of reserpine and a series of electrically‐induced convulsions.