A comparison of the effects of 6-hydroxydopamine and reserpine on noradrenergic and peptidergic nerves in rat brown adipose tissue.

While co-existence of noradrenaline and neuropeptide-Y is, by inference, indicated in sympathetic nervous projections to rat interscapular brown adipose tissue by the fact of their coincident disappearance from the tissue following 6-hydroxydopamine treatment of the animals, reserpine treatment produced a divergent effect suggestive of possible differences either in the localisation and/or release mechanisms for noradrenaline and the peptide within the same neurons. Thus reserpine produced a depletion of noradrenaline but not of the immunohistochemically demonstrable neuropeptide-Y in the nerve plexuses of the tissue.