The plasma GH, PRL, TSH, and dopamine (DA) responses to an infusion of L-dopa were examined in six acromegalic patients before and after pretreatment with carbidopa, a drug which inhibits the ...peripheral conversion of L-dopa to DA. Carbidopa neither modified baseline DA nor induced changes in baseline GH, PRL, or TSH levels. The drug instead markedly reduced the L-dopa-induced DA rise, an effect which was concomitant to a striking reduction of the suppressive effect of L-dopa on plasma GH and a partial inhibition of the suppressive effect of L-dopa on plasma PRL. TSH levels did not change either after L-dopa alone or L-dopa plus carbidopa. These data demonstrate that in "responder" acromegalics, L-dopa inhibits GH secretion through its peripheral conversion to DA and not via activation of central DA neurotransmission. For the effect of L-dopa on PRL secretion, in addition to a peripheral dopaminergic component, a central component cannot be disregarded.
The effects of mazindol, amphetamine and fenfluramine on uptake and release of 3H-DA by synaptosomes were studied in different systems. In in vitro incubations of 3H-DA with synaptosomes isolated ...from the caudate nucleus of the rat, mazindol inhibited the uptake of the radioactivity more potently than did amphetamine. When the synaptosomes were isolated from the caudate nuclei of rats treated in vivo with either mazindol or amphetamine, the uptake of 3H-DA during in vitro incuation was lower with synaptosomes of amphetamine-treated rats than with those of mazindol-treated rats. When synaptosomes of untreated rats were prelabelled with 3H-DA and incubated in the presence of amphetamine or of mazindol, amphetamine caused a greater release of radioactivity than did mazindol. Fenfluramine was without activity in all these systems. In spite of the quantitative differences, both amphetamine and mazindol appear to have similar effects on uptake and release of dopamine, and this may account for their analogous pharmacological profile.
