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
poster:pellmell
thread:69873
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010708/msgs/69910.html