Biogenic Amines Our Neurotransmitters

In Lecture 1, we mentioned neurotransmitters and their relationship to our psychological balance, addiction, love, and so on. All of them involve the typical C—N bond of amines. In this sense, neurotransmitters constitute a hugely important subfamily 

SCHEME 5.6 (a) Benzene and its concise mode of representation (far right), (b) Fragments of benzene obtained by the imclicking of different numbers of C—H bonds. The red circles indicate the connectivity of each fragment, (c) Construction of PEA. (d) Construction of dopamine. 

The first molecule in the figure is serotonin, which was shown also in Lecture 1. Without actually constructing it, you prohahly see hy now that it can be constructed from a triple connector benzene fragment linked to an OH fragment on one side and. 

CONSTRUCTING MOLECULAR WORLDS OF LIFE FROM LARGE LEGO FRAGMENTS 

Acetylcholine is another neurotransmitter which is also involved in attention, memory, sexual arousal, etc. The structure of this neurotransmitter has only one part in common with the other biogenic amines depicted in this figure, and this is the amino component, CH2CH2N(CH3)3+. Note that the terminal N sacrifices its lone pair and binds the electron-deficient fragment CH3.  

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