Effect of monoamineoxidase inhibitors on 5-hydroxytryptamine output from perfused cerebral ventricles of anaesthetized cats.

1. In cats anaesthetized with pentobarbitone sodium, intraperitoneal injections of four inhibitors of monoamine oxidase (MAO) were shown to increase the 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) in the effluent from the perfused cerebral ventricles.2. Weight for weight, tranylcypromine was found to be about twice as potent as pheniprazine, eight times as potent as nialamide and sixty times as potent as pargyline.3. The effect of tranylcypromine was also examined after reserpine had been injected into the cerebral ventricles or after p-chlorophenylalanine, given intraperitoneally. In both conditions tranylcypromine retained its ability to increase the 5-HT output from the perfused cerebral ventricle, but the effect was attenuated, more after p-chlorophenylalanine than after reserpine.4. Evidence is put forward that in both conditions the brain is not completely depleted of its 5-HT, but that the 5-HT is only reduced, more after p-chlorophenylalanine than after reserpine.