Abstract
The effect of chronic (4 weeks) treatment of rats with the antidepressant drugs desipramine, maprotiline, chlorimipramine, zimelidine or iprindol on the sensitivity of presynaptic alpha 2- and postsynaptic beta-adrenoceptors in neocortical slices was investigated. Acute (1 day) treatment with the antidepressants did not affect the efflux of cyclic-AMP induced by isoprenaline (1 microM) from neocortical slices, while after chronic treatment the efflux of cyclic AMP was consistently reduced. Following acute administration the electrically-evoked release of [3H]noradrenaline (NA) from radiolabelled cortical slices remained unchanged. Upon chronic treatment with desipramine the release of [3H]NA was enhanced by about 45%. In contrast, after chronic treatment with maprotiline or chlorimipramine the electrically-evoked release of [3H]NA was not affected, whereas release was even slightly reduced after chronic administration of zimelidine or iprindol. In all cases, however, a similar inhibitory effect of exogenous NA (0.1 microM) on the release of [3H]NA was found. These data indicate that the desensitization of postsynaptic beta-adrenoceptors in rat brain after chronic treatment with antidepressant drugs is not paralleled by a reduction of presynaptic alpha 2-adrenoceptor sensitivity.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 115-9 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Neuropharmacology |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 2A |
Publication status | Published - Feb 1984 |