Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry

Various neurotransmitters have been proposed as possible mediators of penile erection. Especially, norepinephrine and serotonin might have a important role in sexual arousal and penile erection. And it could be hypothesized that the psychogenic impotence is associated with the depletion or imbalance of norepinephrine and serotonin from evidences, such as the symptomatic manifestation of depression and the antidepressant-induced sexual dysfunction. The authors investigates the association of norepienphrine and serotonin with psychogenic impotence. The psychogenic impotent group(PIG) consisted of twenty-three patients with psychogenic impotence and the controlled group(CG) consisted of twenty-seven patients without psychogenic impotence. PIG had no organic cause accounting for their erectile dysfunction. The Beck Depression Inventory(BDI) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory(STAI) were applied to each subject to assess mood, state anxiety(SA) and trait anxiety(TA). Plasma norepinephrine level from systemic blood and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid(HIAA) levels from 24-hours urine were measured in each subject. The mean score of BDI of PIG was significantly higher than that of CG(p＝0.015). PIG had a tendency of higher TA compared with CG(p＝0.054). And also SA was higher in PIG, but did not show significant difference(p＝0.193). The level of norepinephrine was significantly lower in patient with psychogenic impotence(p＝0.000). And the level of 24-hours urine 5-HIAA was lower in PIG but did not show significant difference(p＝0.494). Although the authors did not exclude depressive disorders in PIG, the present findings suggest that psychogenic impotence might have higher depressive mood and trait anxiety, and be associated with the depletion of norepinephrine in systemic blood.

Keywords Psychogenic impotence;Depression;Anxiety;Norepinephrine;5-HIAA.