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Re: PELLMELL: U genius! What's monoaminerginic mean? » Janelle

Posted by pellmell on July 12, 2001, at 20:34:17

In reply to PELLMELL: U genius! What's monoaminerginic mean?, posted by Janelle on July 12, 2001, at 19:34:03

Janelle,

Hey, thanks for the compliment. :)

I've been reading _Essential Psychopharmacology_ by Stephen M. Stahl, an *excellent* psychopharm textbook (thank you Penn State University library system!) and I guess I just wanted to show off. Heh.

You're on the right track with your prefix sleuthing. Monoamines are molecules derived from one amino acid. You might recognize a few of them: serotonin (5HT), norepiniphrine (NE), and dopamine (DA). There're lots of others. The suffix -ergic means "activated or produced by," but in psychopharmacology it seems to be used more generally, meaning something more like "having a lot to do with." So monoaminergic means something like "something that has an effect on/produces monoamines." A monoaminergic neuron is a neuron that produces monoamines. A serotonergic neuron is a type of monoaminergic neuron that produces serotonin.

In one of my last posts I sort of misused the word you asked about when I said "If that were all it took, monoaminergic drugs would take effect very quickly..." I probably should've said something like "if that were the case, antidepressants would take effect very quickly," because some monoaminergic drugs (notably stimulants like Ritalin, which work on dopamine systems) *do* work right away.

Hope that clears it up for you.

-pm


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