Urinary MHPG, Stress Response, Personality Factors and Somatosensory Evoked Potentials in Normal Subjects and Patients with Major Affective Disorders

Abstract

Stressful procedures are reported to increase urinary MHPG in both noraml and depressed patients. Bipolar depressed patients are alos shown to be especially pain tolerant in comparison to normals. In the present study, 12 depressed patiens (6 bipolar and 6 unipolar patients) and 10 normal volunteers had average evokded potentials recorded for visual and painful electrical stumuli. MHPG urinary excretion was measured during this session and during an unstimulated resting session on the home ward. Male normal volunteers showed a significant increase in urinary MHPG under stress, while no MHPG increment was noted for the depressed patient group. Depth of depression, assessed by the Zung and Beck scales, was found to be correlated with the reduced urinary MHPG response to stress. Possible interpretations of the results are discussed.

Sensation Seeking, Mania, and Monoamines

“…The subjects were 43 normals, screened for psychiatric disorders, although ac tual numbers varied for different comparisons because of missing data on some subjects. The results from the pre vious study [Buchsbaum et al, 1981] were not replicated in this study. Instead, both CSF NE and plasma dopa mine-beta-hydroxylase (DBH) were negatively correlated with general sensation seeking.…”

“…The first data on sensation seeking and the mono amines came from a study by Buchsbaum et al [1981]. Urinary MHPG was measured in 12 depressed patients and 10 normal volunteers under resting and stressful con ditions.…”

“…Bipolar affective disorders are characterized by augmenting of the cortical evoked potential (EP) at high intensities of stimulation [Buchsbaum et al, 1973], The augmenting is more prom inent in the manic phase of the illness and may change to reducing during the depressive phase [von Knorring, 1978]. Lithium can change the augmenting reaction to a reducing one in patients [Buchsbaum et al, 1981], Bipo lar, but not unipolar patients tend to have low MAO lev els [Murphy and Weiss, 1972] and these levels do not change as a function of clinical state. High sensation seek ing, particularly on the 'disinhibition' subscale, is related to augmenting of the EP, while low sensation seeking is related to reduction of the EP [Como et al, 1984;Coursey etal., 1975;Lukas, 1981;Mullins and Lukas.…”

Dependence of palmar sweating response and central nervous system activity on the frequency of whole-body vibration

“…Physical stress, such as electrical stimulation applied to the forearm, has been found to increase urinary MHPG (10). According to Drebing et al (11), the saliva level of MHPG correlates significantly with the plasma level of MHPG, and it can be a useful and noninvasive tool for detecting changes in central norepinephrine metabolism.…”

Salivary Hormones, Immunes and Other Secretory Substances as Possible Stress Biomarker

“…Free-3-mehoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (free-MHPG) (Okamura, 2010;Buchsbaum, 1981) and testosterone was reported to show transient increase by short-term laboratory stressors, while the number of studies assessing these substances are very small and frequently showed inconsistent results (e.g. Schoofs, 2011).…”