Consistency in catecholamine and cortisol excretion patterns over experimental conditions

Abstract

Measures of adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol excretion and heart rate in five experimental conditions (three for heart rate) and three baseline conditions were obtained from 24 male and 24 female university students. For each sex group correlation coefficients between variables were calculated on the basis of (1) absolute measures, (2) absolute differences between experimental ad baseline measures, and (3) experimental measures expressed as log percentages of baseline measures. For both sex groups and for the three types of data it was consistently found that adrenaline excretion correlated significantly and positively with noradrenaline, cortisol and urine excretion and that cortisol excretion correlated significantly with urine excretion. Furthermore, in females, absolute measures of noradrenaline were significantly positively correlated with heart rate.