Word: serotonin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...believes there is a single "criminal gene" that programs people to maim or murder. Rather, a person's genetic makeup may give a subtle nudge toward violent actions. For one thing, genes help control production of behavior-regulating chemicals. One suspect substance is the neurotransmitter serotonin. Experiments at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in North Carolina suggest that extremely aggressive monkeys have lower levels of serotonin than do more passive peers. Animals with low serotonin are more likely to bite, slap or chase other monkeys. Such animals also seem less social: they spend more time alone and less...
...similar chemical variation appears to exist in humans. Studies at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism conclude that men who commit impulsive crimes, such as murdering strangers, have low amounts of serotonin. Men convicted of premeditated violence, however, show normal levels. As for aggressive behavior in women, some researchers speculate that it might be tied to a drop in serotonin level that normally occurs just before the menstrual period. Drugs that increase serotonin, researchers suggest, may make people less violent...
...Swiss pharmaceutical giant Sandoz as an alternative that avoids most of Thorazine's side effects. As a major bonus, it at least partly reduces the passivity of schizophrenics as well as their more blatant symptoms. In contrast to the Thorazine family of drugs, clozapine primarily blocks the neurotransmitter serotonin, though it also inhibits dopamine transmission to some degree. The fact that it influences both neurotransmitters may help explain its greater effectiveness. Still, "nobody completely understands why clozapine is a superior drug," says Dr. Luis Ramirez, chief of psychiatry at Cleveland's VA hospitals...
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...
...effectiveness of Prozac, which is the world's top-selling antidepressant, has led some researchers to speculate that serotonin is the key regulator of mood, and that depression is essentially a shortfall of serotonin. But the theory has some serious flaws. If serotonin is so important, why do the tricyclics (which affect both norepinephrine and serotonin) work slightly better than the drugs that act on serotonin alone? And why, since these drugs act quickly to change the serotonin levels in the brain, does it take up to a month for their effects to be felt? Finally, some scientists wonder...