Physiological and environmental stresses have been shown to alter the catecholamine metabolism of brain. For example, electric shocks (1) and cold exposure (2) significantly reduce the brain content of norepinephrine. In mice, psychosocial stimulation leads to a marked increase in the catecholamine content and in the enzymatic activities of phenylethanolamine-N-methyl transferase (PNMT), monoam...

Catecholamine secretion and actin filament disassembly are closely coupled in chromaffin cells. Opioid suppression of catecholamine secretion is fast and transient, both characteristics of actin filament involvement. The aim of the present work was to test the hypothesis that opioids suppress catecholamine secretion via an inhibitory effect on actin filament disassembly. For this purpose we use...

Phaeochromocytomas and paragangliomas (PPGLs) are highly heterogeneous tumours with variable catecholamine biochemical phenotypes and diverse hereditary backgrounds. This analysis of 18 catecholamine-related plasma and urinary biomarkers in 365 patients with PPGLs and 846 subjects without PPGLs examined how catecholamine metabolomic profiles are impacted by hereditary background and relate to v...

BACKGROUND Obesity in children and adolescents is characterized by chronic sympathetic overdrive and reduced epinephrine-stimulated lipolysis. This resistance to catecholamines occurs during the dynamic phase of fat accumulation. This review will focus on the relationship between sympathetic-adrenal activity and lipid metabolism, thereby highlighting the role of catecholamine resistance in the ...

Injections of the retrogradely transported fluorescent dye, Evans blue, into the trigeminal nucleus caudalis were combined with the glyoxylic acid histofluorescence technique to determine the sources of catecholamine-containing varicosities innervating nucleus caudalis. Results indicate that the sources of this catecholamine innervation are widespread, originating from cell bodies throughout th...

Catecholamine nerve terminals in the rat median eminence have been studied using the fluorescence histochemical technique of Falck and Hillarp in combination with quantitative microfluorimetry. The catecholamine fluorescence intensities recorded from various parts of the median eminence were all found to be within the linear part of the dopamine or noradrenaline concentration-fluorescence relat...

We have initiated a study of catecholamine-containing neurons in Drosophila melanogaster because of the potential, with this organism, to perturb catecholamine metabolism using genetic tools. The major objectives of this study were (1) to define the pattern of catecholamine-containing neurons and (2) to determine the effect of the absence of dopa decarboxylase (DDC) enzyme activity on the catec...

We elucidated the contribution of endogenous pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) to neurally evoked catecholamine secretion from the isolated perfused rat adrenal gland. Infusion of PACAP (100 nM) increased adrenal epinephrine and norepinephrine output. The PACAP-induced catecholamine output responses were inhibited by the PACAP type I receptor antagonist PACAP- (6-38) (3...

The direct effect of alpha 2-autoreceptors was studied by measuring the effects of piperoxan, an alpha 2-autoreceptor antagonist, and clonidine, an agonist on catecholamine exocytosis, from single bovine chromaffin cells in culture. Catecholamine release was elicited by stimulation with 100 microM nicotine and was monitored electrochemically with a carbon-fiber microelectrode placed adjacent to...