During this year studies on catecholamine metabolism focused on collaborative investigations evaluating the relationship between norepinephrine turnover and activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in depression. These studies extended previous work by our group showing elevated catecholamine turnover in hypercortisolemic depressed patients. In preclinical studies, we began a series of investigations to evaluate the effects of altered feeding patterns, stress, and pharmacologic treatments on the regulation of appetitive behavior, satiety responses and body weight, with particular focus on the influence of central monoamine and endogenous opiate systems. Preliminary studies in rodents showed that naloxone produced dose-dependent attenuation of sham feeding of sucrose solutions following 18 hr. food deprivation. The influence of varying deprivation schedules on this opiate effect is under current investigation.
