Endocrine Measures Prolactin

Endocrine Effects. Ferroni et al. (1992) measured prolactin levels in 30 controls and in 60 women occupationally exposed to tetrachloroethylene at a median concentration of 15 ppm. Although they noted a significant increase in prolactin levels in the exposed women relative to the controls during the proliferative phase of the menstrual cycle, values of both groups were in the normal range. Therefore, it is unlikely that the observed effect has biological significance. 

They are now many modifications of different sensitivity and limit of detection (Utiger 1979, Spencer 2004). In the endocrine safety pharmacology in rats and dogs, the TRH test injection with measurement of the serum TSH response is an established tool for assessment of changes at the level of thyroid hormone secretion, with consecutive modification of the pituitary TSH and prolactin response. 

In a prospective study, endocrine responses to hyperthermic stress were assessed in 10 male cocaine users after 4 weeks of abstinence and again after 1 year of abstinence (184). They sat in a sauna for 30 minutes at a temperature of 90°F and a relative humidity of 10%. At the end of the sauna, they rested for another 30 minutes at room temperature. Sublingual temperature, pulse rate, and blood pressure were recorded just before and immediately after the sauna and 30 minutes after the period at room temperature. Venous P-erythropoietin, ACTH, metenkephalin, prolactin, and cortisol were also measured. There were no significant differences between the... 

In addition to the common neural mechanism, primer pheromones have a common endocrine effect expressed principally by changing prolactin secretion from the anterior pituitary. Our own studies have shown that lowering prolactin by injections of bromocriptine (a dopamine agonist) is able to reproduce the actions of all the described primer pheromones in female mice with identical timing (Keverne, 1982). Direct measurement of prolactin has also demonstrated that exposure of female mice to males results in rapid decreases of serum prolactin (Ryan and Schwartz, 1980). Such decreases in prolactin are probably brought about by increases in the release of hypothalamic dopamine from the tuberoinfundibular dopaminergic (TIDA) neurons into the hypophyseal portal circulation. Indeed, our recent studies show there to be an increase in the synthesis of dopamine in this... 

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