Brain Electrolytes in Depressive and Alcoholic Suicides

Abstract

One of the hypotheses advanced to explain the processes underlying severe depression postulates a change in brain function due to an alteration in the distribution of cations across the neuronal membranes (Shaw and Coppen, 1966; Shaw, 1966). Electrophysiological evidence of abnormal function of pathways in the nervous system in depression has been obtained by the study of evoked cortical potentials (Shagass and Schwartz, 1966), but evidence of derangement in the distribution of cations between the cells and extracellular space has come only from “whole body” studies (Coppen and Shaw, 1963; Coppen, Shaw, Malleson and Costain, 1966; Shaw and Coppen, 1966).