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 neurochemical mechanisms by which drugs acting on central serotoninergic system modify feeding were reviewed. Fenfluramine, a clinically effective appetite suppressant, releases serotonin from nerve terminals and inhibits its reuptake, and considerable evidence suggests that these effects mediate its anorectic activity. The D isomer of fenfluramine is particularly specific in affecting serotonin mechanisms and causing anorexia. Transmitters other than serotonin such as acetylcholine, catecholamines and GABA are also affected by systemic administration of fenfluramine, but some of these effects are secondary to fenfluramine's action on serotoninergic mechanisms. Moreover, there is no evidence that these brain substances are involved in fenfluramine's ability to cause anorexia. Several studies with drugs affecting different serotonin mechanisms such as release and uptake or mimicking the action of serotonin at post-synaptic receptors suggest that increase serotonin release and direct stimulation of postsynaptic receptors are the most effective mechanisms for causing depression of food intake, although inhibition of serotonin uptake may also contribute in appropriate conditions. Development of serotonin receptor hyposensitivity and, in some instances, decreased serotonin levels may lead to tolerance to the anorectic activity of drugs enhancing serotonin transmission, the degree of this depending critically on the type of effect on serotonin mechanisms and intensity and duration of serotonin receptor activation. Recent evidence suggests that a decrease in serotonin function causes stimulation of feeding. This may lead to development of new strategies for the treatment of clinical anorexias.
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PMID:Neurochemical mechanism of action of drugs which modify feeding via the serotoninergic system. 242 23

Investigations in animals indicate that urapidil has a number of actions that may be relevant to its antihypertensive effect. It has an alpha 1-blocking action, a weak beta 1-blocking effect, an interaction with a serotonin receptor and a central depression of sympathetic tone. Urapidil is well absorbed orally with a bioavailability of about 70% and a time to peak concentration of about 4 hours after a sustained release capsule. It is metabolized in the liver at a half-life of 4.7 hours. Peripheral alpha 1-blocking activity has been demonstrated in humans. A shift to the right in the dose-response curve to phenylephrine has been found after urapidil, whereas responses to angiotensin are not affected. Evidence for beta 1-blocking activity is marginal. Urapidil does not inhibit the exercise increase in heart rate. Some investigators have suggested a possible inhibition of isoprenaline tachycardia; others have found no evidence. There is some evidence suggestive of a central action of urapidil in humans as lower single doses result in a decrease in blood pressure and an increase in heart rate. With higher doses the hypotensive effect continues but the tachycardia no longer occurs. However, urapidil has been reported to increase noradrenaline levels, although there has been a report with a high dose reducing vanillylmandelic acid excretion. Evidence for changes in renin is inconsistent. Hemodynamic studies have revealed findings that are compatible with peripheral alpha 1 blockade. After intravenous administration, peripheral resistance is reduced along with arterial pressure, and cardiac output is increased.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:Urapidil, a multiple-action alpha-blocking drug. 256 63

Previous investigations by our group and others have demonstrated that poststroke depressions are not fully explained by the severity of associated impairment. We have consistently found, however, a strong association between development of major depression and left anterior brain injury. Recent studies have demonstrated that either left anterior cortical or subcortical lesions may lead to the development of major depression and that preexisting subcortical atrophy may play an important permissive role in the development of major depression. Patients with a mild degree of ventricular enlargement perhaps related to perinatal damage may be more likely to develop poststroke major depression following a lesion of the left frontal cortex or left basal ganglia than a patient without preexisting atrophy. Poststroke mania, on the other hand, is strongly associated with right hemisphere lesions as well as a preexisting subcortical atrophy and sometimes a family history of affective disorder. Thus, mania following brain injury may require the convergence of two factors: a right hemisphere brain injury and either a preexisting subcortical atrophy or a genetic vulnerability. PET scan findings have suggested that the biochemical response of the two hemispheres to stroke may be different. Right hemisphere stroke produces an increase in serotonin receptor binding, which is not found following comparable left hemisphere strokes. Within the left hemisphere, the lower the serotonin binding, the more severe the depression. This suggests that the right but not the left hemisphere may have an ability to increase serotonin binding in noninjured regions, producing a biochemical "compensation" for damage. This differential biochemical response to injury between the right and left hemisphere may partially explain why left hemisphere injury leads to depression and right hemisphere injury (in special circumstances) lead to mania. There remain, however, numerous unanswered questions and many important areas for future research. Although this area of neuropsychiatry is just beginning to develop, it is hoped that insights gained from studying mood disorders in brain-injured patients may also help to illuminate mechanisms involved in affective disorder in patients without brain injury.
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PMID:Mood disorders following stroke: new findings and future directions. 260 85

The effects of mescaline and LSD on the flash-evoked cortical potential (FEP) were determined in unrestrained rats with chronically-implanted electrodes. Systemic administration of mescaline or LSD significantly attenuated the primary component of the FEP at three stimulus intensities with the greatest effect observed 60-90 minutes following drug administration. The magnitude and specificity of the effects of these agents on the primary response suggest that they produce deficits in conduction through the retino-geniculato-cortical system. The serotonin receptor antagonists, cyproheptadine and methysergide, antagonized the mescaline-induced depression of the FEP in accordance with neurochemical and behavioral evidence that mescaline acts as a partial agonist on serotonin receptors. Topical or intraocular administration of atropine antagonized the actions of systemically-administered mescaline. In addition, intraocular administration of mescaline or LSD attenuated the FEP indicative of an action of these hallucinogens on visual processing in the retina which is modulated by muscarinic receptor activity.
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PMID:Effects of intraocular mescaline and LSD on visual-evoked responses in the rat. 273 30

The effects of steady iontophoretic applications of serotonin on the spontaneous discharge and on the excitatory responses induced in deep cerebellar nuclei neurons by iontophoretic pulse applications of L-glutamate, L-aspartate, N-methyl-D,L-aspartate and quisqualate were studied in rat cerebellar slices maintained in vitro. Serotonin increased the spontaneous firing rate of deep cerebellar nuclei neurons in 91% of the tested cells by 109% on the average and had no effect on the remaining recorded neurons. Conversely, the monoamine induced a depression of the excitatory responses induced by four agonists tested and the depressant potency of serotonin was in the order quisqualate, glutamate, aspartate, N-methyl-D,L-aspartate. These effects persisted in low calcium high magnesium solution, suggesting that the serotonin receptors involved in these phenomena were, at least partially, postsynaptically located. The serotonin-induced increase in the cell firing rate appeared to be methysergide-resistant whereas the serotonin-induced decrease in the responses elicited by excitatory amino acids was depressed by this antagonist, which could indicate that these differential effects of serotonin are mediated via different mechanisms and/or serotonin receptor subtypes.
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PMID:Differential effects of serotonin on the spontaneous discharge and on the excitatory amino acid-induced responses of deep cerebellar nuclei neurons in rat cerebellar slices. 289 90

Animal investigations suggest that the mechanism of the antihypertensive effect of urapidil may be complex. Suggestions have included an alpha 1-blocking action, a weak beta 1-blocking effect, an interaction with a serotonin receptor and a central depression of sympathetic tone. Peripheral alpha 1-blocking activity has been demonstrated in man, and a shift to the right in the dose-response curve to phenylephrine has been found after administration of urapidil, while responses to angiotensin are not affected. Evidence for beta 1-blocking activity is marginal, but urapidil does not inhibit the exercise-induced increase in the heart rate, and there is only some suggestion of a possible inhibition of isoprenaline-induced tachycardia. Possible central activity may be deduced from the observation that while lower single doses reduce blood pressure and increase the heart rate, with higher doses the hypotensive effect continues but the tachycardia no longer occurs. However, lower doses of urapidil lead to an increase in noradrenaline levels, while changes in renin are less constant, but there has been a report that a high dose reduced vanillylmandelic acid excretion. Urapidil reduces peripheral resistance along with arterial pressure, and cardiac output is increased. In spite of a reduced arterial pressure, renal blood flow is maintained, presumably due to dilation of renal vessels. Urapidil is well absorbed orally with a bioavailability of about 70% and a tmax at about 4 h after a sustained release capsule. It is metabolized in the liver with a t1/2 of 4.7 h. In conclusion there is evidence that urapidil is an alpha 1-blocking drug in man.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:Clinical pharmacology of urapidil. 290 95

Changes in platelet and lymphocyte adrenoceptor densities, platelet serotonin uptake and aggregatory response to serotonin were assessed in a group of moderately depressed patients before and during treatment with either trazodone or amitriptyline. Platelet serotonin receptor activity and uptake were lower before the start of treatment in all patients than in those patients responding to treatment. The densities of alpha 2- and beta-adrenoceptors tended to be higher in the patients before treatment and returned to control values after effective therapy. There were no major differences in the biochemical changes between the patients treated with trazodone or amitriptyline. When the biochemical data was correlated with the clinical history of the patients, it was found that only endogenously depressed patients, and not those with non-endogenous depression, had a significantly reduced platelet serotonin uptake rate. In addition, female depressives had a slightly lower platelet 5-HT aggregatory response than males irrespective to the type of depression.
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PMID:Peripheral adrenoceptors and serotonin receptors in depression. Changes associated with response to treatment with trazodone or amitriptyline. 293 61

Systemic pretreatment with ketanserin, a relatively specific type-2 serotonin receptor antagonist, significantly attenuated the muscle rigidity produced in rats by the potent short-acting opiate agonist alfentanil. Following placement of subcutaneous electrodes in each animal's left gastrocnemius muscle, rigidity was assessed by analyzing root-mean-square electromyographic activity. Intraperitoneal ketanserin administration at doses of 0.63 and 2.5 mg/kg prevented the alfentanil-induced increase in electromyographic activity compared with animals pretreated with saline. Chlordiazepoxide at doses up to 10 mg/kg failed to significantly influence the rigidity produced by alfentanil. Despite the absence of rigidity, animals that received ketanserin (greater than 0.31 mg/kg i.p.) followed by alfentanil were motionless, flaccid, and less responsive to external stimuli than were animals receiving alfentanil alone. Rats that received ketanserin and alfentanil exhibited less rearing and exploratory behavior at the end of the 60-min recording period than did animals that received ketanserin alone. These results, in combination with previous work, suggest that muscle rigidity, a clinically relevant side-effect of parenteral narcotic administration, may be partly mediated via serotonergic pathways. Pretreatment with type-2 serotonin antagonists may be clinically useful in attenuating opiate-induced rigidity, although further studies will be necessary to assess the interaction of possibly enhanced CNS, cardiovascular, and respiratory depression.
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PMID:Ketanserin pretreatment reverses alfentanil-induced muscle rigidity. 311 50

Studies using the 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) animal model of depression have led to the development of the hypersensitive postsynaptic serotonin receptor theory of depression. To demonstrate more clearly that the 5-HTP-induced suppression is a centrally mediated phenomenon, rats were implanted with bilateral cannulae in the lateral hypothalamus and received microinjections of D,L-5-HTP (100-500 ng) 15 min after the start of a VI operant session (milk reinforcement). Significant decreases in responding were observed that were comparable to those obtained after a systemic injection of 50 mg/kg D,L-5-HTP. Rats receiving a microinjection of 5-HTP in the posterior hypothalamus did not exhibit a behavioral effect. Rats working on shock-avoidance schedules did not demonstrate response suppression following microinjection of 5-HTP into the lateral hypothalamus, which is the same result as that following systemic 5-HTP administration. These data support the important role previously assigned to central 5-HT mechanisms in the 5-HTP animal model of depression.
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PMID:Response suppression in rats after bilateral microinjection of 5-hydroxytryptophan in lateral hypothalamus. 325 38

Patients with right-hemisphere strokes (N = 9) more than 1 year after injury had greater cortical binding of (3-N-[11C]methyl)spiperone than a similar group of patients with left-hemisphere strokes (N = 8) or normal control subjects (N = 17). The higher S2 serotonin receptor binding occurred in uninjured regions of the right parietal and temporal cortex. The ratio of binding in the ipsilateral to contralateral cortex showed a significant negative correlation with severity of depression scores in the left temporal cortex. These findings suggest that the biochemical response of the brain may be different depending on which hemisphere is injured and that some depressions may be a consequence of the failure to upregulate serotonin receptors after stroke.
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PMID:PET imaging of cortical S2 serotonin receptors after stroke: lateralized changes and relationship to depression. 339 77


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