Summary
Biochemical human post-mortem studies on depressed patients indicate an unspecific deficiency of neurotransmitters in several brain areas. The loss of drive of these patients could be correlated with a decrease of striatal dopamine concentration. Noradrenaline was significantly diminished in red nucleus, a fact which points to the characteristic posture of depressed patients. Serotonin was diminished in all brain areas. During remission all values trended to be normal.
There also exists a circadian disrhythm in depressed patients resulting in lowered VMA- and HVA-levels in urines during the morning and a remission to normal values in the evening. This agrees with the findings of lowered blood tyrosine levels in the morning. The ratio of blood tyrosine and tryptophan is disturbed during depression and recovers during remission. Central and peripheral biochemical mechanisms seems to be involved in depression syndrom.
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These results partly have been contributed to a symposium on “Die Depression in der Sicht des praktischen Arztes” held at Linz (Austria) in February 1974 (Birkmayer, Neumayer and Riederer, 1974 b).
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Birkmayer, W., Riederer, P. Biochemical post-mortem findings in depressed patients. J. Neural Transmission 37, 95–109 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01663627
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01663627