ADRENERGIC RESPONSES IN THE HUMAN EYE

¹ The W. K. Kellogg Foundation Laboratories, The Wilmer Institute, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland and Applied Physics Laboratory, The Johns Hopkins University Silver Spring, Maryland

The responses of the pupil, intraocular pressure and aqueous humor dynamics have been studied. Norepinephrine induced pupil dilatation, decreased intraocular pressure and increased tonographic outflow facility. The responses were dose-dependent. Isoproterenol was without effect on either the pupil or the outflow facility but decreased intraocular pressure. Epinephrine, at low concentrations, decreased intraocular pressure without an increase in outflow facility and without pupil dilatation. At higher concentrations an increase in outflow facility and mydriasis took place. Protriptyline induced potentiation of the ocular response to both endogenously released and exogenously administered norepinephrine: however, it induced little potentiation to epinephrine and none to isoproterenol.