Catecholamines: Basic and Clinical Frontiers

Catecholamines: Basic and Clinical Frontiers is a collection of papers that discusses clinical problems related to this series of compounds which includes dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. One paper discusses the role of biogenic amines in several mental disorders, such as senile dementia, schizophrenia, chronic alcoholism, and affective disorders. Another paper describes that in studies of mice, the number of neurotransmitter-specific neurons is under a genetic control and can be a significant determinant of species-dependent variation in brain chemistry, nuclear organization, drug responses, and spontaneous behavior. One paper investigates if prostaglandins can directly alter the release or reuptake of catecholamines in the central nervous system, as well as their action upon the disposition of different metabolites of dopamine and norepinephrine in brain perfusate. The effects of several drugs on shock elicited fighting in rats show no significant aspects with amphetamine, apomorphine, phenoxybenzamine or phentolamine. The use of clonidine and propranolol shows a significant inhibition of fighting, while low doses of piperoxane exhibits a marked increase in fighting behavior. The collection can prove beneficial for pharmacologists, biochemists, micro-biologists, cellular researchers, and academicians involved in the study of physiology or neuroendocrinology.