Sex differences in ACTH pulsatility following metyrapone blockade in patients with major depression.

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Young EA, Ribeiro SC, Ye W

Sex differences in ACTH pulsatility following metyrapone blockade in patients with major depression.

Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2007 Jun;32(5):503-7. Epub 2007 Apr 25.

PubMed ID

17462829 [ View in PubMed

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Abstract

Numerous studies suggest that increased central drive to the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis occurs in patients with major depression. To determine if increased central drive occurs throughout the 24 h, we evaluated ACTH secretion under metyrapone blockade of cortisol production. We collected blood every 10 min for measurement of ACTH and data were analyzed for ACTH pulsatility using the pulse detection algorithm deconvolution. We studied 28 patients with major depression and 28 age and sex-matched control subjects, of which 9 pairs were men and 19 pairs were women. We found a significant group x sex interaction with number of ACTH pulses (p=0.04); depressed men showed more ACTH pulses over 24h than matched control men (p=0.02). There was also a significant sex difference in AUC pulses with men showing a smaller AUC ACTH than women. Previous analyses of these data with RM-ANOVA showed a smaller ACTH response in depressed men compared to control men. These data suggest that pulsatility and mean ACTH levels are examining different aspects of HPA axis function, and that the types of HPA axis dysregulation in depression may differ between men and women.

DrugBank Data that Cites this Article

Drug Targets

Drug	Target	Kind	Organism	Pharmacological Action	Actions
Metyrapone	Cytochrome P450 11B1, mitochondrial	Protein	Humans	Yes	Inhibitor	Details