As Good as Chocolate

摘要

No one could have imagined how important the 1948 discovery of the vasoconstrictor serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine or 5-HT) would be to the field of human physiology (1). Elucidation of the 5-HT structure (2) and synthesis of the molecule with the expected biological activity (3) soon followed. This monoamine is a ligand for 15 receptors, and drugs that target 5-HT receptors are widely used to treat conditions including migraine headache, depression, anxiety, nausea, vomiting, and irritable bowel syndrome, reflecting the wide diversity of physiological and pathophysiological processes in which 5-HT is involved (4).