Word: iproniazid
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...1950s revealed that compounds that depressed serotonin levels depressed patients as well. Not long after, researchers found two more clues to the serotonin-depression connection. The first was that reserpine, an anti-blood-pressure medicine that depresses serotonin levels, can sometimes trigger depression. The second came from iproniazid, originally developed as an anti-tuberculosis agent. The medicine worked against TB, which naturally made patients happy. When the euphoria did not wear off, however, scientists began to suspect that it was not entirely natural...
They were right. Iproniazid is what is known as a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAO). In the brain, scientists have subsequently learned, monoamine oxidase's job is to destroy leftover neurotransmitters that are floating around loose after they have done their work. By inhibiting the action of monoamine oxidase, drugs like iproniazid let neurotransmitters circulate and keep stimulating neurons longer than they normally would. An extended soaking in serotonin and norepinephrine evidently made for a happier patient, and MAO inhibitors became the first antidepressants...
...with Thorazine for schizophrenia, the first breakthrough for treating depression with drugs came accidentally. Doctors using a tuberculosis drug called iproniazid in 1952 discovered that the medicine had a remarkable effect on the mood of their patients: they literally began dancing in the halls...
Five years later, scientists found out why. Iproniazid falls into the category of antidepressant medications known as MAO inhibitors, which work by blocking the breakdown of two potent neurotransmitters -- norepinephrine and serotonin -- and allowing them to bathe the nerve endings for an extended length of time. A second category of antidepressants, the tricyclics (so named for their triple-carbon-ring structure), raises the level of these neurotransmitters in the brain by slowing the rate at which they are reabsorbed by nerve cells. The third and newest category of medications, represented by the popular Prozac and a number of other drugs...
...made by New Jersey's Hoffmann-La Roche, also shows roughly the same activity as iproniazid, but with fewer and milder undesirable effects...