Abstract
Pshychiatric patients and laboratory animals treated with lithium carbonate develop an important polydipsia and polyuria. Polydipsia could be a primary phoenomenon which induces a secondary polyuria or alternatively polyuria could be primary and polydipsia secondary. Experiments using nephrectomized male rats treated with lithium suggest that polyuria seems to be primary and polydipsia secondary. This is confirmed when water is restricted to lithium treated animals because their urine volumes are greater than the water ingested; our results also suggest that there is some kind of renal damage which could cause a primary polyuria. Kidneys morphollogical studies show non specific damages.
