[The effect of the activation of the sympathetic-adrenal system on the pulmonary inactivation of catecholamines in rats].

Norepinephrine extraction was found to be decreased in the lungs of immobilised rats. Administration of epinephrine to intact rats up to the same level in the blood plasma as after stress, induced an increase in the norepinephrine extraction by the lungs. The data obtained suggest that norepinephrine inactivation due to immobilisation stress is unrelated to the plasma epinephrine level. The role of the lungs in the maintenance of increased plasma of norepinephrine by means of decreasing its metabolic inactivation, is discussed.