Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0011570 (depression)
 172,036 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The effects of low doses of thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH, 50 and 200 micrograms) on thyrotropin (TSH) and prolactin levels have been studied in depressed women and compared with the depressive condition and with the results of the dexamethasone suppression test (DST). TRH administration elicited blunted hormonal responses that were not correlated either with the age of the patients or with DST results. Different effects were observed in subgroups of depressive patients classified according to DSM III and ICD. No correlation was found between hormone responses and the scores of Hamilton Rating Scale and Montgomery Depression Scale. The effects of 50 micrograms on TSH were significant and inversely correlated with Anxiety Rating Scale scores. No dose-response effect was apparent of prolactin and TSH in depressed patients, suggesting an impaired function of pituitary TRH receptors.
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PMID:Thyrotropin and prolactin responses to different doses of thyrotropin-releasing hormone in depression. 250 67

Abnormalities in neuroendocrine regulation are widespread in depressive illness. In this article, abnormalities found in five different endocrine systems are evaluated. There has been a wide-spread use of the dexamethasone suppression test in investigation of depressed patients. Use of this test as a diagnostic test for melancholia may be confounded because abnormalities are found in overlapping illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease or anorexia nervosa as well as in a variety of other conditions such as fasting. However, this test has promise in monitoring clinical status in patients who have an abnormal DST. Abnormalities found in the TRH test and in growth hormone regulation are of limited use clinically, but point to underlying biologic abnormalities. Aberrent regulation of prolactin is now well established, but this hormone has been investigated to a limited extent and warrants further investigation. There is currently a good deal of interest in the pineal hormone melatonin. Reduction in the normal nocturnal peak is found in depressed patients and there is an increase in nocturnal melatonin levels found in patients during treatment with desipramine. Bipolar patients are reported to be abnormally sensitive to melatonin suppression by light. This finding points to the abnormality in the photoperiodic regulation of the pineal output in these patients. Further refinement of neuroendocrine approaches to the investigation of depression should be very productive.
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PMID:Psychoneuroendocrinology of depression. 250 40

Abnormal neuroendocrine responses have been found in depression and eating disorders. It remains unclear whether these reflect an underlying shared biology or epiphenomena. To evaluate this further, we conducted the 1 mg DST and the TSH response to 500 micrograms i.v. TRH in normal-weight bulimics and controls. Bulimics (n = 18) demonstrated significantly more DST non-suppression (45%) than controls (18%; n = 20). In the bulimic group, non-suppressors were significantly thinner than suppressors, but did not differ from them on any measure of depression. Bulimics (n = 19) and controls (n = 12) responded similarly without blunting on the TSH response to TRH. These data suggest that DST non-suppression may be related to non-specific variables such as weight. Bulimics do not demonstrate TSH blunting as found in some depressed patients. These tests do not support evidence for a biological link between these disorders.
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PMID:The DST and TRH test in bulimia nervosa. 250 82

In order to find the correlation between dexamethasone suppression test (DST) and TSH response to TRH in the differential diagnosis of subtypes of depression, and to evaluate the possible relationship between Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adreno-cortisol axis, Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Thyroid axis function, psychopathological symptoms, and the possible influence of age and sex, 107 depressed patients were studied. The relationship between both tests (DST and THS response to TRH) and the subtypes of depression was unspecific. The results did not show psychopathologic differences between depression subgroups. DST appeared to be a good marker for the "state" of illness, whereas TSH was better as a predictor for the outcome.
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PMID:[Usefulness of neuroendocrine function tests in the differential diagnosis of depression]. 251 35

A neuroendocrine study was conducted in eight children and adolescents with dysthymic disorders (three females and five males) and in eight age- and sex-matched psychologically normal controls. The dexamethasone suppression test (DST), TSH and GH responses to TRH stimulation and GH response to clonidine stimulation were studied in parallel in each patient. Depressive symptomatology was monitored with the Poznanski Rating Scale. The DST, TRH and clonidine tests revealed normal responses in each patient. TRH induced abnormal GH rises in five of the eight patients. There were no correlations between neuroendocrine parameters and degree of depression, age, sex or weight of the patients, age of onset, duration and family history of the disease.
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PMID:Neuroendocrine investigation in children and adolescents with dysthymic disorders: the DST, TRH and clonidine tests. 252 97

Several endocrine parameters were assessed in 35 alcoholic inpatients after admission to hospital, and 17 of the 35 were retested after several weeks of sobriety. No difference was found in clonidine-stimulated growth hormone (GH) secretion between male alcoholics and male healthy controls, but significant positive correlations of GH secretion and alcohol content in expired breath on admission and gamma-GT values after abstinence were observed. Nonsuppression in the dexamethasone suppression test was found in 17% of the patients on admission, which seemed to be due to alcohol withdrawal. Postdexamethasone cortisol levels were significantly positively correlated with the "apathic syndrome" (r = 0.40; p less than or equal to 0.05). About one-third of the patients showed a blunted response in the TRH-test both on admission and after abstinence. No significant influence of alcohol intake, withdrawal or familial disposition on prolactin values could be detected. The results of the TRH test and the DST point to similar endocrinological patterns in alcoholics as in depressive patients and thus support the hypothesis of a link between alcoholism and depression.
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PMID:Endocrinological studies in alcoholics during withdrawal and after abstinence. 254 97

Current theories of affective disorders do not account for many of the biological markers replicated in patient studies. We link many biological findings in a reasonable physiological relationship, compatible with mechanisms of action of pharmacological and electroshock therapies for depression. We propose that excessive phospholipase-A2 (PLA2) activity disrupts membrane fluidity, composition, and therefore, the activity, of membrane-dependent proteins. Similar disruptions in these proteins are documented in depressed patients and can be accounted for by excessive PLA2 activity. This paradigm accounts for disturbances in the activity of Na-K-ATPase, beta2- and alpha2-adrenergic receptors, MAO, norepinephrine and serotonin uptake, and imipramine binding. Disturbances in other membrane-dependent proteins, tyrosine and tryptophan hydroxylase, can explain the biogenic amine hypothesis. Inhibition of glucocorticoid receptor and TRH receptor binding to their respective ligands by PLA2 may explain patient nonsuppression in the Dexamethasone Suppression Test and poor response in the TRH stimulation test. Physiological regulators of PLA2 activity; calcium, cortisol, estrogen, progesterone, and PGE2 are documented abnormalities in some patients with affective disorders and consistent with excessive PLA2 activity. Thus, postpartum depression and premenstrual tension syndrome may be described in the paradigm. The mechanisms of action of tricyclic antidepressants, lithium, electroconvulsive shock, and some novel antimanic agents can be described in terms of alterations of PLA2 activity. Interestingly, ethanol perturbs membrane fluidity and membrane-bound enzymes in a manner similar to excessive PLA2 activity. A hereditary factor predisposing patients to affective disorders may be a gene defect at either PLA2 or in its regulation.
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PMID:Are disturbances in lipid-protein interactions by phospholipase-A2 a predisposing factor in affective illness? 256 35

The results of 11 experiments in a total of 571 rats (initial body weight of 150-250 g) are reported and some findings differing from those by others are discussed. It was repeatedly found that the animals after bilateral or even unilateral superior cervical sympathetic gangliectomy (GX) did not gain body weight during the first week after surgery. Though they started to grow later, for several weeks their body weight remained significantly less than that of sham operated controls (SH). Though such phenomenon has not yet been described, it may well explain the increase of thyroid weight (as expressed per body weight) after gangliectomy alone or combined with antithyroid drug treatment or hypophysectomy as described by others. It was suggested that such changes may depend on general metabolic changes resulting in a striking inhibition of body weight gain rather than on some specific effect of GX on the thyroid. This view was supported by evaluating the data on absolute and relative thyroid weight from 4 experiments in a total of 265 animals. The level of thyroxine (T4) and thyrotropic hormone (TSG) was repeatedly found to be significantly decreased after GX for until about 72 h and 24 h after surgery, respectively, which was in agreement with the data reported by others. However, the onset of such decrease was repeatedly found to appear at 6 or 8 h after surgery (in one experiment even at 3 h after surgery) which is also contrasting to the onset of T4 decrease at 14 h after surgery as found by others who suggested a correlation of such thyroid depression with a depletion of noradrenaline from the thyroid and may be even from median eminence. In these experiments, however, a decrease of T4 level was found several hours before the depletion of noradrenaline from the thyroid which appeared at 12 h after surgery and remained at similar level until 40 days, while no remarkable changes of that were found in SH animals (with the excretion of slight increase after 24 h). Between about 4 and 40 days after surgery no significant changes in T4 and TSH levels after GX were found as compared with SH animals is in agreement with others.4+n one experiment the increase of T4 at 2 h after TRH injection, resulting apparently from the effect of endogenous TSH, was significantly inhibited in GX animals at 8 days after surgery, while in other experiments (at 8 and 40 days after surgery) no difference in T4 level increase was found in GX animals as compared with SH ones. In general, it may be suggested that superior cervical sympathetic gangliectomy may result in some temporary and perhaps transient changes in pituitary-thyroid function in rats.
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PMID:Studies and reevaluations of some aspects on thyroid function after superior cervical sympathetic gangliectomy in rats. 280 86

TRH and naloxone influence on the clinical hormonal manifestations of the alcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS) was studied. The results obtained were suggestive of the association of the pathogenesis of symptoms like frustration, skin hyperemia, tachycardia, and raised BP with function of the peptidergic system. It should be noted that symptoms like depression, sleep disturbances and headaches happened to be more sensitive to TRH while sweating is more sensitive to naloxone. A positive therapeutic effect of naloxone in the early period of AWS was likely to result from lowered function of the opiate system. The data obtained led to a preliminary conclusion of a close interrelationship and involvement of the hormonal, peptidergic and opiate systems in AWS pathogenesis, this being an important factor for the understanding of alcohol-induced abnormalities and for the choice of pathogenetically founded therapeutic methods.
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PMID:[Participation of the peptidergic and endogenous opiate systems in the pathogenesis of early manifestations of the alcohol abstinence syndrome]. 283 19

Twelve patients suffering from mental anorexia were examined on clinical and biological grounds, based on the hypothesis of the functional depression of the noradrenergic track. The initial values of MHPG and of catecholamines were below normal. The quantitative results for depression and retardation were lessened significantly under beta-stimulant treatment. Only glucuro-conjugate MHPG excretion increased significantly, but the MHPG values were much lower than normal at the end of the treatment. The correlations between biochemical and behavioural parameters were worth noticing as far as the retardation scale was concerned. The present study shows the advantage of the dexamethasone suppression test and of the response of TSH under TRH.
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PMID:[Disorders of noradrenergic pathways in anorexia nervosa. Results]. 285 80


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