This review focuses on the role of norepinephrine (NE) in traumatic stress. The review is
divided into three sections. The first section,“Norepinephrine and Arousal,” describes
preclinical studies related to norepinephrine's role in arousal, orienting to novel stimuli,
selective attention and vigilance. It also contains a brief discussion of NE and its relationship
to fear-provoking stimuli followed by preclinical and clinical studies that demonstrate
heightened noradrenergic neuronal reactivity, increased α2 receptor sensitivity and�…

For four decades, norepinephrine (NE) has been postulated to play an important, possibly
primary, role in the pathophysiology and subsequent treatment of mood disorders. The long-
held hypothesis was that depression and pathological elation are direct functions of low and
high activity of norepinephrine-containing neurons, respectively. Decades of research in this
field have been devoted to further clarifying this relationship. However, there continues to be
inconsistencies in the data, with different studies finding significant differences in NE�…