A szerotonin a központi idegrendszerben: Kirándulás a neurobiológiától, genetikától a farmakológia, pszichiátria és neurológia felé

The widely distributed neurotransmitter serotonin is unquestionably involved in many essential facets of human physiology and behaviour and continues to attract great scientific and public interest. Research related to serotonin became a success story of pharmacology, neurology and psychiatry and other biomedical fields. Several drugs that led to the revolution of the pharmacotherapy of depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, migraine, irritable bowel disease or vomiting act on the serotonergic neurotransmission. The first part of this article gives a short summary of our current knowledge about serotonin, namely anatomy, receptors, functions and drugs used in therapy. In the second part the authors focussed on the results of the last ten year research in selected serotonin-related fields achieved by the Laboratory of Neurochemistry and Experimental Medicine of the previous National Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology and it's successor at Semmelweis University. These include preclinical and clinical works in the fields of neurosciences and pharmacology, namely migraine, epilepsy, anxiety, depression, sleep regulation and the morphological and functional effects of ecstasy (3,4- methylenedioxymethamphetamine, MDMA).