Abstract

Surgical noradrenergic denervation of the cortex via frontal lobotomy was used to destroy the noradrenergic nerve endings and thus give some insight into the distribution of alpha-adrenoceptors. Frontal lobotomy caused a reduction in noradrenaline content in rat cerebral cortex (2.1 +/- 0.4 ng/mg protein for lesioned side, 6.0 +/- 0.3 mg/mg protein for non-lesioned side), indicating an effective noradrenergic denervation. The differences in 3H-clonidine and 3H-prazosin binding observed following surgery were a significant decrease in the number of alpha 2-adrenoreceptors (115.0 +/- 4.5 to 91.7 +/- 3.2 fmol/mg protein, n = 7, P less than 0.001) and a smaller but significant increase in the number of alpha 1-adrenoceptors (119.7 +/- 2.5 to 131.6 +/- 5.4 fmol/mg protein, n = 7, P less than 0.05) in the lesioned cortex. Results of this study indicate that alpha 2-adrenoceptors located on presynaptic noradrenergic terminals represent only a small proportion of the total alpha 2-adrenoceptors in rat cerebral cortex.

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