Brain norepinephrine: enhanced turnover after rubidium treatment.

After biosynthesis of norepinephrine was inhibited, treatment of rats for 10 days with rubidium chloride (0.6 milliequivalent per kilogram of body weight) caused an increase in the rate of disappearance of norepinephrine in the brainstem but not in the telencephalon. Also the utilization of intracisternally injected tritiated norepinephrine was increased and was accompanied by a shift in the pattern of norepinephrine metabolism to normetanephrine. These data suggest that greater amounts of neuronally stored norepinephrine were released to central adrenergic receptors.