Erratum und Summary zur Arbeit Schildkraut (Pharmakopsychiat. 2/68, S. 69)

This article is an erratum to the article Norepinephrine Metabolism and Psychoactive Drugs in the Endogenous Depressions, in: Pharmakopsychiatrie Neuro-Psychopharmakologie, Volume 1, Issue 2, 1968 .

Summary

The possible role of norepinephrine metabolism in the endogenous depressions was studied in a combined program of basic pharmacological and clinical investigation. The data from our studies support the thesis that the antidepressant drugs and stimulants may act, in part, by increasing norepinephrine at central receptor sites. These data also suggest that lithium salts, which are effective in the treatment of mania, may act to decrease norepinephrine available to receptors. The basic and clinical findings, moreover, are compatible with (but do not definitively establish) the catecholamine hypothesis of affective disorders, which proposes that some, if not all, depressions may be associated with a functional deficiency of norepinephrine at adrenergic receptors in brain, while elations may be associated with an excess of this amine.