Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:37:11.263Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prolactin and Mental Illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

D. F. Horrobin
D. F. Horrobin*
Affiliation:
Department of Physiology, The Medical School, The Univernty, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It has not previously been suggested that prolactin may be involved in mental illness. Yet virtually every drug used in psychiatry either stimulates or suppresses prolactin secretion (Fluckiger, 1972). Prolactin causes renal sodium, potassium and water retention (Horrobin, 1973). It is bound to cerebral tissue and alters hypothalamic activity (Turkington and Frantz, 1972; Clemens, Gallo, Whitmoyer and Sawyer, 1971). Prolactin levels up to 100 ng./ml. potentiate the responses of smooth muscle cells to noradrenaline, while higher levels inhibit the responses: preliminary studies suggest that nerve cells behave in a similar way (Manku, Nassar and Horrobin, 1973). Emotional stress, surgery and drugs such as phenothiazines, reserpine and methyldopa can elevate human plasma prolactin levels into the 50–200 ng./ml. range (Frantz, Kleinberg and Noel, 1972; Friesen, Belanger, Guyda and Hwang, 1972).

Type
Abstract
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 124 , Issue 582 , May 1974 , pp. 456 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1974 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bowers, C. Y., Friesen, H. G., and Folkers, K. (1972). ‘On the mechanism of TRH-induced prolactin release.’ Clinical Research, 20, 71.Google Scholar
Clemens, J. A., Gallo, R. V., Whitmoyer, D. I., and Sawyer, G. H. (1971). ‘Prolactin-responsive neurons in the rabbit hypothalamus.’ Brain Research, 25, 371–9.Google Scholar
Fluckiger, E. (1972). ‘Drugs and the control of prolactin secretion’, in Prolactin and Carcinogenesis (ed. Boyns, A. R. and Griffiths, K.). Cardiff: Alpha Omega Alpha.Google Scholar
Frantz, A. G., Kleinberg, D. L., and Noel, G. L. (1972). ‘Studies on prolactin in man.’ Recent Progress in Hormone Research, 28, 527–90.Google Scholar
Friesen, H., Belanger, C., Guyda, H., and Hwang, P. (1972). ‘The synthesis and secretion of placental lactogen and pituitary prolactin’, in Lactogenic Hormones (ed. Wolstenholme, G. E. W. and Knight, J.), pp. 83–103. Churchill Livingstone.Google Scholar
Friesen, H. Hwang, P., Guyda, H., Tolis, G., Tyson, J., and Myers, R. (1972). ‘A radioimmunoassay for human prolactin’, in Prolactin and Carcinogenesis (ed. Boyns, A. R. and Griffiths, K.). Cardiff: Alpha Omega Alpha.Google Scholar
Horrobin, D. F. (1973). Prolactin: Physiology and Clinical Significance. Lancaster: Medical and Technical Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kastin, A. J., Ehrensing, R. H., Schalch, D. S., and Anderson, M. S. (1972). ‘Improvement in mental depression with decreased thyrotropin response after administration of thyrotropin-releasing hormone.’ Lancet, ii, 740–2.Google Scholar
Manku, M. S., Nassar, B. A., and Horrobin, D. F. (1973). ‘Effects of prolactin on the responses of aortic and arteriolar smooth muscle to noradrenaline and to angiotensin.’ Lancet, ii, 981–94.Google Scholar
Turkington, R. W., and Frantz, W. L. (1972). ‘The biochemical actions of prolactin’, in Prolactin and Carcinogenesis (ed. Boyns, A. R. and Griffiths, K.). Cardiff: Alpha Omega Alpha.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.