No abstract

Depressed patients have been reported to exhibit both a blunted ACTH response to corticotropin‐releasing factor (CRF) and abnormal suppression of plasma cortisol following the administration of dexamethasone. The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between these two abnormalities. Twenty‐three depressed patients and eighteen control subjects received both a standard CRF stimulation test and the dexamethasone suppression test (DST). Nonsuppressors on the DST exhibited a blunted ACTH response to CRF; DST suppressors exhibited a normal ACTH response to CRF. This suggests that the two abnormalities of the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal (HPA) axis are related and may be due to similar pathopbysiological mechanisms. Depression 1:133–136 (1993). © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

No abstract

The authors administered the growth hormone-releasing factor (GRF) stimulation test to 19 patients with major depression and 19 age- and sex-matched control subjects to test the hypothesis that a blunted growth hormone (GH) response to clonidine reflects a central alpha 2-adrenergic receptor subsensitivity in depression. GH response to GRF was significantly higher in patients with depression than in control subjects. This group difference was mainly attributable to three of the 19 depressed patients who exhibited markedly high GH responses to GRF. These results suggest that the blunted GH response to clonidine seen in patients with depression is not due to a pituitary defect in GH secretion.