Serotonin system memory

Entactogene and hallucinogenic amphetamines, furthermore, have an effect on the serotonin system by increasing the availability of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that controls sleep, mood, emotion, memory, perception, sexual behavior, and hunger [14],... 

Serotonin mediates many central and peripheral physiological functions, including contraction of smooth muscle, vasoconstriction, food intake, sleep, pain perception, and memory, a consequence of it acting on several distinct receptor types. Although 5-HT may be metabolized by monoamine oxidase, platelets and neurons possess a high-affinity mechanism for reuptake of 5-HT. This mechanism may be inhibited by the widely prescribed antidepressant drugs termed selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRl), e.g. fluoxetine (Prozac ), thereby increasing levels of 5-HT in the central nervous system. 

Neuropsychological impairments in mood disorders, particularly those of working memory and executive function, are the most convincing and objective demonstrations of an impairment of consciousness. Since these impairments do not correlate with the severity of the mood disturbance and persist upon recovery they are not simply epiphenomena of the mood disturbance but rather may index trait pathology in susceptible individuals. It has previously been argued that mood disturbance and neuropsychological impairment may result from disturbances in two different neurochemical systems, the serotonin (5-HT) system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, between which there is a close interaction (McAllister-Williams et al., 1998). 

Serotonin s effects include classical neuronal inhibition, as well as modulation. The study of dreaming teaches us that disinhibition is likely the cause of positive signs of hallucination, emotional intensification, and confabulation, whereas demodulation more likely causes the negative signs such as memory loss, disorientation, and bizarreness. Serotonin blockade induced disinhibition is one of the mechanisms by which the very same set of aspects of model psychoses is generated the visual distortion and hallucination could result from visual system disinhibition the emotional intensification could result from limbic system disinhibition and confabulation could result from associative cortex disinhibition. 

Laborit, H. Correlations between Protein and Serotonin Synthesis during Various Activities of the Central Nervous System (slow and desynchronized sleep, learning and memory, sexual activity, morphine tolerance, aggressiveness, and pharmacological action of sodium gamma-hydroxybutyrate). Research Communications in Chemical Pathology and Pharmacology 3 (1) (1972) 58-81. 

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