How do various emotional states and stress conditions affect the excretion of epinephrine and norepinephrine in normal subjects and psychiatric patients?
This physiological study aimed to quantify the response of the adrenal medulla by measuring epinephrine and norepinephrine excretion across a variety of real-world emotional and stressful states.
RESPONSES of the adrenal gland to stress have been the subject of much research (1). Unlike the adrenal cortex, the adrenal medulla as a part of the sympathetic nervous system is intimately connected with the expression of the emotions (2). A study was undertaken to determine the excretion of epinephrine (E) and norepinephrine (NE) of normal and psychiatric patients in various emotional states. Data were obtained on: (a) subjects in both sleeping and waking states, (b) professional hockey players and their coach before and after the game, (c) amateur boxers before and after the contest, (d) neuropsychiatric patients appearing at staff conference, (e) normal subjects in anticipatory states, (f) psychiatric patients receiving the psychotomimetic agent, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and (g) psychiatric patients on whom mental status and Malamud-Sands rating scale records were obtained during the collection period. The excretion rates of E and NE were studied after graded doses of E and NE were infused. These data were used to estimate the secretion of the amines in the various stress conditions studied.
Elmadjian et al. (1957) studied this question.
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