PURPOSE This study investigated the relationships among the plasma levels of catecholamine metabolites, the clinical response to duloxetine treatment, and Val158Met polymorphism of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Sixty-four patients and 30 healthy control subjects were recruited. Major depressive episodes were diagnosed using the Structured Clinical Intervie...

OBJECTIVE Stress-induced release of noradrenaline (NA) from locus coeruleus (LC) neurons is mainly regulated by corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). Tyrosine is a precursor of NA and plays an intriguing role in the regulation of NA release. DESIGN We studied the effects of injecting CRH into the LC using a novel bilateral approach which relies on the mainly ipsilateral projections of LC neu...

We measured the plasma concentration of a centrally derived noradrenaline (NA) metabolite, 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylethyleneglycol (MHPG), in 20 cirrhotic patients (eight with (group A) and 12 without (group B) hepatic encephalopathy (HE] and in 14 age matched healthy subjects to study if the central NA metabolism would be altered in liver cirrhosis patients, particularly in those with HE. The ...

Objective(s):The relationship between tramadol, as an antinociceptive drug, and locus coeruleus (LC), the main noradrenergic nucleus of the brain that affects regulation and modulation of pain through descending noradrenergic pathways was investigated. Materials and Methods: Male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into four groups of 10 rats. The rats were fixed in stereotaxic instrument and then...

BACKGROUND Differentiating idiopathic late-onset cerebellar ataxia (ILOCA) from ataxia due to the cerebellar subtype of multiple-system atrophy (MSA-C) can be difficult in the early stages of the disease METHODS The authors analyzed the levels of various CSF biomarkers in 27 patients with MSA-C and 18 patients with ILOCA and obtained cut-off points for each potential biomarker to differentiat...

Plasma levels of physiological amine metabolites are rarely reported because of the technical difficulties in their measurement. The authors measured plasma levels of both physiological amines and their main matebolites in 14 patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage, using a simplified method of high-performance liquid chromatography employing electrochemical detection, devised by one of the autho...

The effects of 8-OHDPAT and UH-301 injection into the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) on fear behavior of the light-dark transitions test and regional brain monoamines (NA, DA, 5-HT) and their metabolites (MHPG, DOPAC, 5-HIAA) in the hypothalamus (HPT), midbrain central gray matter (MID), amygdala (AMY), hippocampus (HIP) and pons (PO) were examined. An injection of 8-OHDPAT (300 ng) as well UH-301 ...

Alaska pollack protein (APP) reduces serum triacylglycerol and body fat accumulation by the enhancement of basal energy expenditure through fast-twitch muscle hypertrophy in rats. However, the effects of APP on brain function have not yet been clarified. In the present study, we investigated the effects of orally administered APP on the brain levels of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG), wh...

The catecholamines dopamine (DA), noradrenaline (NA) and adrenaline (A), their aminoacid precursors tyrosine (Tyr), L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA), two of their metabolites 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and 4-hydroxy-3-methoxy phenyl glycol (MHPG), serotonin (5-HT) and its precursor tryptophan (Trp), were measured by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) with electrochemica...