Neuropharmacology Poster Session

Re: Poster 725

On Sun Dec 6, grover wrote
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>Dr. Miguez: Hope you are enjoying the meeting. Great poster. I am wondering why you chose pindolol which also has beta adrenergic effects rather than a more selective antagonist?
>
Thank you for your interest. I agree that pindolol has a complex antagonistic action on both b-adrenergic and 5-HT1A receptors. The use of (-)-pindolol in our study was founded in that pindolol presents an increasing interest to be used in combined therapy with SSRIs, being demonstrated a reduction in the latency of antidepressive response in patients. In fact, I think that this is the only antagonist of 5-HT1A receptors that has been used in humans succesfully. By other hand, it has been shown previously that selective b-adrenergic antagonists, without affinity for 5-HT1A receptors, does not alter the increase in extracellular 5-HT levels caused by administration of ISSRs (Hjorth, 1993; J. Neurochem., 60: 776-779). Thus, it may be thought that the action of pindolol blocking the decrease induced by paroxetine in 5-HT extracellular levels, as we have demonstrated, seems to be dependent on the action of this drug on serotonergic receptors, probably at 5-HT1A somatodendritic sites.
Hope a good meeting for you.
Jesus M. Míguez.

Mon Dec 14