Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-r6qrq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T19:03:57.699Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Urinary monoamines and monoamine metabolites in subtypes of unipolar depressive disorder and normal controls

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Alec Roy ,
David Pickar ,
Patrice Douillet ,
Farouk Karoum  and
Markku Linnoila
Alec Roy*
Affiliation:
Section on Clinical Studies, Clinical Neuroscience Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
David Pickar
Affiliation:
Section on Clinical Studies, Clinical Neuroscience Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Patrice Douillet
Affiliation:
Section on Clinical Studies, Clinical Neuroscience Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Farouk Karoum
Affiliation:
Section on Clinical Studies, Clinical Neuroscience Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Markku Linnoila
Affiliation:
Section on Clinical Studies, Clinical Neuroscience Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Alec Roy, Section on Clinical Studies, Clinical Neuroscience Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Building 10, Room 4N-214, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20205, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

An examination was made of urinary catecholamine and metabolite outputs in 28 unipolar depressed patients and 25 normal controls. The total group of depressed patients had significantly higher urinary outputs of norepinephrine (NE) and its metabolite normetanephrine (NM), and significantly lower urinary outputs of the dopamine metabolite dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC), than controls. Patients who met DSM-III criteria for a major depressive episode with melancholia (N = 8) had significantly higher urinary outputs of normetanephrine than controls, whereas patients with a major depressive episode without melancholia (N = 7) and dysthymic disorder patients (N = 8) had levels comparable with controls. We postulate that the higher urinary outputs of norepinephrine and its metabolite, normetanephrine, reflect dysregulation of the sympathetic nervous system in depression.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , August 1986 , pp. 541 - 546
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association (1980). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn) (DSM-III). APA: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Beckmann, H. & Goodwin, F. K. (1975). Antidepressant response to tricyclics and urinary MHPG in unipolar patients: clinical response to imipramine or amitriptyline. Archives of General Psychiatry 32, 17–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beckmann, H. & Goodwin, F. K. (1980). Urinary MHPG in subgroups of depressed patients and normal controls. Neuropsychobiology 6, 91–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blombery, P., Kopin, I. J., Gordon, E., Markey, S. & Ebert, M. (1980). Conversion of MHPG to vanillylmandelic acid. Archives of General Psychiatry 37, 1095–1098.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bunney, W. & Davis, J. (1965). Norepinephrine in depressive reactions: a review. Archives of General Psychiatry 13, 484–494.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Charney, D., Heninger, G., Sternberg, D. & Landis, H. (1982). Abrupt discontinuation of tricylic antidepressant drugs: evidence for noradenergic hyperactivity. British Journal of Psychiatry 141, 377–386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endicott, J. & Spitzer, R. (1979). A diagnostic interview: the schedule for affective disorders and schizopherenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 35, 837–844.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Essler, M., Turbott, J., Schwarz, R., Leonard, P., Bobik, A., Skews, H. & Jackman, G. (1982). The peripheral kinetics of norepinephrine in depressive illness. Archives of General Psychiatry 39, 295–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, M. (1960). A rating scale for depression. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry 23, 56–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hollister, L. E., Davis, K. L. & Berger, P. A. (1980). Subtypes of depression based on excretion of MHPG and response to nortriptyline. Archives of General Psychiatry 37, 1107–1110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Karoum, F. & Neff, N. (1982). Quantitative gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) of biogenic amines: theory and practice. In Modern Methods in Pharmacology (ed. Spector, S. and Beck, N.), pp. 39–54. Alan R. Liss: New York.Google Scholar
Kopin, I. (1984). Avenues of investigation for the role of catecholamines in anxiety. Psychopathology 17, 83–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koslow, S., Maas, J., Bowden, C., Davis, J., Hanin, I. & Javaid, J. (1983). CSF and urinary biogenic amines and metabolites in depression and mania. Archives of General Psychiatry 40, 999–1010.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lake, C. R., Pickar, D., Ziegler, M. G., Lipper, S., Slater, S. & Murphy, D. L. (1982). High plasma norepinephrine levels in patients with major affective disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry 139, 1315–1318.Google ScholarPubMed
Linnoila, M., Karoum, F., Calil, H., Kopin, I. & Potter, W. (1982). Alteration of norepinephrine metabolism with desipramine and zimelidine in depressed patients. Archives of General Psychiatry 39, 1025–1028.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Linnoila, M., Karoum, F. & Potter, W. (1982). High correlations of norepinephrine and its major metabolite excretion rates. Archives of General Psychiatry 39, 521–523.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Linnoila, M., Karoum, F. & Potter, W. (1983 a). Effects of antidepressant treatments on dopamine turnover in depressed patients. Archives of General Psychiatry 40, 1015–1017.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Linnoila, M., Karoum, F., Miller, T. & Potter, W. (1983 b). Reliability of urinary monoamine and metabolite output measurements in depressed patients. American Journal of Psychiatry 140, 1055–1057.Google ScholarPubMed
Linnoila, M., Karoum, F., Rosenthal, N. & Potter, W. (1983 c). Electroconvulsive treatment and lithium carbonate. Archives of General Psychiatry 40, 677–680.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maas, J., Fawcett, J. & Dekirmenjian, H. (1968). 3-Methoxy-4-hydroxy-phenylglycol (MHPG) excretion in depressive states: a pilot study. Archives of General Psychiatry 19, 129–134.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maas, J., Fawcett, J. & Dekirmenjian, H. (1972). Catecholamine metabolism, depressive illness and drug responses. Archives of General Psychiatry 26, 252–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muscettola, G., Potter, W., Pickar, D. & Goodwin, F. (1984). Urinary 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol and major affective disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 41, 337–341.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roy, A., Pickar, D., Linnoila, M., Doran, A., Ninan, P. & Paul, S. (1985 a). Cerebrospinal fluid monoamine and monoamine metabolites in melancholia. Psychiatry Research 15, 281–292.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roy, A., Pickar, D., Linnoila, M. & Potter, W. (1985 b). Plasma norepinephrine in affective disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry 42, 1181–1185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schildkraut, J. (1965). The catecholamine hypothesis of affective disorder: a review of supporting evidence. American Journal of Psychiatry 122, 509–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schildkraut, J. J. (1973). Norepinephrine metabolites as biochemical criteria for classifying depressive disorders and predicting responses to treatment: preliminary findings. American Journal of Psychiatry 130, 695–698.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schildkraut, J. J., Orsulak, P. J., LaBrie, R. A., Schatzberg, A., Gudeman, J., Cole, J. & Rohde, W. (1978 a). Toward a biochemical classification of depressive disorder: II. Application of multivariate discriminant function analysis to data of urinary catecholamines and metabolites. Archives of General Psychiatry 35, 1436–1439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schildkraut, J. J., Orsulak, P. J., Schatzberg, A. F., Gudeman, J., Cole, J., Rohde, W. & LaBrie, R. (1978 b). Toward a biochemical classification of depressive disorders: I. Differences in urinary excretion of MHPG and other catecholamine metabolites in clinically defined subtypes of depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 35, 1427–1433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spiker, D. G., Edwards, D., Hanin, T., Neil, J. & Kupfer, D. (1980). Urinary MHPG and clinical response to amitriptyline in depressed patients. American Journal of Psychiatry 137, 1183–1187.Google ScholarPubMed
Wyatt, R. J., Portney, B., Kupfer, D. J., Snyder, F. & Engelman, K. (1971). Resting plasma catecholamine concentrations in patients with depression and anxiety. Archives of General Psychiatry 24, 65–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed