Summary
Lithium, administered intraperitoneally to rats in doses of 2.5 to 15 meq/kg body wt., did not alter the noradrenaline content of the brain; but when given together with a tyrosine-hydroxylase inhibitor, H 44/68, it produced a depletion of brain noradrenaline which was more pronounced than that produced by H 44/68 alone. The effect of lithium on cerebral noradrenaline depletion appeared to be correlated with the lithium concentration in the brain tissue. Histochemical studies also showed that the administration of lithium and H 44/68 together led to a stronger reduction in fluorescence intensity of the noradrenaline neuron terminals in the brain than that seen after H 44/68 alone.
Lithium did not affect the depletion of dopamine produced by H 44/68 or the depletion of 5-hydroxytryptamine produced by the tryptophanhydroxylase inhibitor H 22/54.
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Corrodi, H., Fuxe, K., Hökfelt, T. et al. The effect of lithium on cerebral monoamine neurons. Psychopharmacologia 11, 345–353 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00404612
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00404612