Citation

Meana JJ, García-Sevilla JA. J. Neural. Transm. 1987; 70(3-4): 377-381.

Affiliation

Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, Spain.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1987, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2824686

Abstract

The density of brain alpha 2-adrenoceptors, quantitated by means of the binding of the agonist 3H.clonidine, was studied in post-mortem cortical membranes of matched control subjects and depressed suicide victims. In the depressed suicide group, the specific high affinity binding of 3H.clonidine was found to be significantly increased (Bmax, 72% greater; p less than 0.01) without significant changes in the KD value for the radioligand. These preliminary results indicate that alpha 2-adrenoceptor density in the high affinity state (alpha 2H) is increased in the brain of depressed patients and add strong support to the hypothesis that endogenous depression is related to supersensitive alpha 2-adrenoceptors.

Language: en