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

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.
 ...
PMID:Neuroendocrine investigation in children and adolescents with dysthymic disorders: the DST, TRH and clonidine tests. 252 97

Major depressives often have abnormalities in the secretion patterns of their anterior pituitary hormones and target endocrine gland hormones. There are changes in both basal hormone secretion and the responses of these hormones to perturbation tests. Considerable work has been done attempting to develop a clinical application for some of these changes as biological state markers of endogenous depression. Prominent among the changes is an overactivity of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis. The dexamethasone suppression test (DST), as a reflection of HPA axis activity, has been the most thoroughly investigated "biological test" in psychiatry to date. Considerably fewer studies have addressed more fundamental issues of HPA axis regulation in depression, such as the relationship between pre-DST cortisol hypersecretion and DST outcome. The next most widely investigated endocrine axis in depression has been the hypothalamo-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis. Most studies have dealt with the TSH response to exogenously administered thyrotropin releasing hormone. While blunted TSH responses have been found in depressives compared with normal controls, the frequency of blunted responses in other types of psychiatric patients has made this test marginally useful for differential diagnosis. The reported changes in other hormone axes, for example the blunted growth hormone response to several challenges noted in depressed patients, have not been investigated sufficiently thoroughly to support their general clinical use at present.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
 ...
PMID:Pharmacoendocrinology of major depression. 267 May 73

The effects of the severity of psychiatric illnesses on thyroid function and their relationship to serum testosterone levels were studied in 38 men of African origin, suffering from chronic schizophrenia. Significantly lower levels of serum T4, T3, FT4I and testosterone in acutely psychotic patients indicated decreased thyroid-gonadal activity. Higher serum T4 and FT4I and lower serum TSH, testosterone and cortisol levels were observed in patients whose illnesses were in remission. Levels of both FT4I and testosterone in clinically stable patients, however, were not significantly different in comparison to controls, suggesting recovery from the illness. No significant differences either in thyroid or gonadal hormones were observed between patients exhibiting depression or elated affects; among disorganized, catatonic, paranoid and undifferentiated types; and among patients treated with different psychotropic drugs. The possible mechanisms involved in such thyroid-gonad relationship are discussed.
 ...
PMID:Thyroid-gonad relationship in chronic schizophrenia. 276 36

Most clinically euthyroid patients with acute or chronic nonthyroid illness have abnormal thyroid function which is called the euthyroid sick syndrome. To assess the euthyroid sick syndrome in depression, we examined levels of total thyroxine (TT4), total triiodothyronine (TT3), T3 uptake (T3U) by radio-immunoassay and thyrotropin (TSH) by immunoradiometric assay in a group of 46 patients with major depression (diagnosed according to DSM-III), 44 normal control subjects and 39 schizophrenics. As compared with the normal controls and schizophrenics, depressed patients showed the following significant differences: a reduction of the mean TT3 level by 26% (89.6 +/- 26.9 ng/dl versus 121 +/- 21.4 ng/dl, p less than 0.05), an increase in the mean T3U level by 6% (35.4 +/- 4.1 versus 33.1 +/- 3.0%, p less than 0.05), and a rise in the mean FT4I level by 15% (2.96 +/- 0.59 versus 2.50 +/- 0.40, p less than 0.05). However, both the mean TSH and TT4 levels in depressed patients were not significantly different from those in normal subjects and schizophrenics, though there was a trend toward high mean TT4 levels in depressed patients. Among the 46 depressed patients who had normal basal TSH levels, 7(15%), 3(6%) and 11 (23%) had the low T3 syndrome, low T3 plus low T4 syndrome and high T4 syndrome, respectively. The clinical implication of the low T3 or/and T4 low syndrome was discussed. All the abnormal thyroid indices in the 21 depressed patients were normalized after recovery of depression. These findings suggest that the euthyroid sick syndrome in depression might be a state-dependent phenomenon.
 ...
PMID:Alterations in thyroid function tests in major depression. 276 13

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.
 ...
PMID:Studies and reevaluations of some aspects on thyroid function after superior cervical sympathetic gangliectomy in rats. 280 86

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.
 ...
PMID:[Disorders of noradrenergic pathways in anorexia nervosa. Results]. 285 80

The finding of a diminished TSH response to exogenously administered TRH in a significant proportion of depressed patients has now been established as one of the most reproducible findings in biological psychiatry. More than 50 reports, in which more than 1000 patients have been studied, reveal that the TSH response is blunted in approximately 25% of patients with major depression. TSH blunting is clearly not specific for depression, because it also has been observed in mania, alcoholism, and borderline personality disorder. It is doubtful that TSH blunting represents a non-specific response to mental stress: it was found only rarely in schizophrenic patients, and the TSH response to in vivo flooding therapy in phobic patients was normal. In both depression and alcoholism, TSH blunting has been reported to be sometimes a state marker and sometimes a trait marker, i.e. the fault was found to persist into remission in more than half the patients. In both conditions, TSH blunting was unrelated to the patients' age, body weight, height, body surface, thyroid status, and serum cortisol concentrations. It also is unlikely that TSH blunting was due to increased dopaminergic inhibition of thyrotroph cells: serum prolactin concentrations in TSH blunters were found to be normal, and pretreatment with haloperidol had no effect on either basal TSH levels or TSH blunting. In depression, TSH blunting was not associated with previous drug intake, dexamethasone suppression test abnormalities, or variables of biogenic amine metabolism, nor did it usefully segregate between primary and secondary depression or between unipolar and bipolar subgroups. Preliminary evidence suggests that TSH blunting in depression may be related to duration of illness, history of violent suicide attempts, and a reduced 24 h TSH secretion. In alcoholism, TSH blunting was unrelated to family or personal history of depression and duration of abstinence. With reference to clinical utility, TSH blunting may aid in assessing the response to antidepressant treatment, predicting outcome to such treatment, assessing the risk for violent suicide attempts, and describing relationships between different psychiatric populations (e.g. depression and alcoholism).
 ...
PMID:The TRH-induced TSH response in psychiatric patients: a possible neuroendocrine marker. 286 65

Neuroendocrine abnormalities in depression have been regarded, by many authors, as relatively specific markers of nosological subtypes of the disorder, e.g. primary vs. secondary, endogenous vs. non-endogenous or unipolar vs. bipolar depression. They should reflect the same changes in central neurotransmitters (e.g. noradrenergic insufficiency and/or cholinergic hyperactivity) that were hypothesized as the cause of clinical symptoms. This view is challenged on the basis of our own neuroendocrine investigations in 317 psychiatric patients and 103 normal controls. According to these studies the abnormalities are nosologically rather unspecific. They are induced by a large variety of factors, e.g. emotional stress associated with the clinical symptomatology, weight loss due to malnutrition as a consequence of reduced appetite, medication and drug withdrawal. Stress-induced hypercortisolism appears to be the most common abnormality that may trigger other neuroendocrine dysfunctions, such as a blunted TSH response to TRH. Differences in neuroendocrine abnormalities of depressives are probably due to variations in the manifold factors influencing the hormonal axes involved, to temporal changes in hormonal patterns (e.g. one abnormality triggering another) and to individual differences in the basic activity and the responsiveness of the various axes.
 ...
PMID:The nature of neuroendocrine abnormalities in depression: a controversial issue in contemporary psychiatry. 288 Mar 46

In view of recent investigations concerning alterations of thyroid function in depression, the pre- and postdexamethasone levels of T3, T4, and TSH of 14 patients during depression and after recovery were studied, in addition to those of 27 healthy controls. A reduction of T3 and TSH levels was shown to be dependent on the depressive state, with a tendency to lower T4 levels after recovery. Dexamethasone had a pronounced suppressive effect on TSH levels in healthy controls and in patients after recovery, but not during the depressive episode. These results point to an inadequate suppressibility of the hypothalamo-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis to dexamethasone during depression. There are close interrelations between the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and the HPT axes that are possibly affected during depressive illness.
 ...
PMID:Triiodothyronine, thyroxine, and TSH response to dexamethasone in depressed patients and normal controls. 291 8

Post-operative psychosis is a frequent complication after open-heart surgery. To investigate relationships between psychopathological outcome and endocrine and psychological variables, serum levels of cortisol, beta-endorphin, norepinephrine, TSH, and cholesterol were measured in 23 male patients undergoing aortic valve replacement from the day before operation (OP) until the seventh day after OP. State and trait anxiety, stress appraisal and the use of coping styles also were assessed. After OP, eight patients suffered from post-OP psychosis and nine from minor psychopathological symptoms. Post-OP psychopathology was significantly correlated with pre-OP psychopathological score as well as with state anxiety, pre- and post-OP stress, and the use of a self-controlling coping style. Serum cortisol, beta-endorphin, norepinephrine, and TSH levels were markedly elevated after OP. Cholesterol levels showed a decline. With regard to endocrine variables, the eight psychotic patients did not differ from 15 non-psychotic subjects, but a subgroup of three major depressed patients had distinctly elevated levels of cortisol and norepinephrine. For all 23 patients, pre-OP cholesterol correlated with pre-OP psychopathology and post-OP depression. Furthermore, post-OP depression was significantly correlated with both post-OP cortisol and norepinephrine. These results indicate the stressful nature of the OP and suggest a multifactorial association of endocrine and psychological variables with psychiatric complications after open-heart surgery.
 ...
PMID:Neuroendocrine and psychological variables relating to post-operative psychosis after open-heart surgery. 293 62


<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next >>