Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:868-872
Copyright © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association
Biogenic amine and metabolite levels in depressed patients with high versus normal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical activity
PE Stokes, JW Maas, JM Davis, SH Koslow, RC Casper and PM Stoll
The activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis is
often high in depressive illness. The authors studied 132 depressed
patients and 80 healthy control subjects. They report a significant direct
association between HPA axis activity and adrenomedullary epinephrine
secretion in depressed patients. They also found that depressed patients
with high HPA activity tend to have lower CSF levels of
5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, a serotonin metabolite, and modestly lower
levels of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol, a metabolite of epinephrine and
norepinephrine, than patients with normal HPA activity. These findings
provide potentially important leads for understanding interactions of
biogenic amine systems with HPA axis function.
