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The effect of immunosympathectomy on the responses of the mouse to reserpine and various

Antidepressant and stimulant drugs

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Abstract

The technique of immunosympathectomy was used to investigate the relative importance of sympathetically mediated processes in the body temperature responses of mice to reserpine treatment and the thermogenic effects of subsequently administered anti-depressant and CNS stimulant drugs.

It was found that immunosympathectomized mice were less sensitive to the temperature lowering effects of reserpine but exhibited, unexpectedly, an enhanced thermogenic response to each of the representative antidepressant and stimulant drugs tested.

These findings appear to exclude the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system as an essential prerequisite for the thermogenic effects of anti-depressant and stimulant drugs in reserpine treated mice. It is suggested that the observed effects could be accounted for in terms of a possible hyperfunctional adrenal gland.

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The findings reported above were presented, in part, at the 7th International Congress of C.I.N.P., Prague, Czechoslovakia, August 1970.

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Greenwood, D.T., Sommerville, A.R. The effect of immunosympathectomy on the responses of the mouse to reserpine and various. Psychopharmacologia 24, 231–237 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00403642

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00403642

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