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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
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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 

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References

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