ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors summarize their neuroendocrine studies employing ovine- and human-Corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) in patients with depression, alcoholism, and panic disorder and in normal controls. These investigations were designed in order to analyze pathophysiology of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical aberrancies in several affective disorders and to generate hypotheses about a possible role of CRH in mediating depressive behavior. In a first attempt to study the neuroendocrine effects of ovine-CRH, the authors administer 100 µg of the neuropeptide intravenously to eight unmedicated patients with severe endogenous depression. R. P. Hullin et al. reported that in vitro production of aldosterone is altered if adrenocortical cell cultures were exposed to serum of patients during depression when contrasted to effects by serum collected during the manic states. From the data base, which is limited by the small sample size, the authors conclude that patients with panic disorder as a group are biologically heterogeneous at least regarding neuroendocrine regulation of the LHPA-axis.
