Antipsychotics and Serotonin

[Brishen]

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[Velvet Elvis]

Well. APs do all kinds of crazy shit. Where they do it is more important than what they do though.

Here is the pharmacological info that rxlist has listed for seroquel.

SEROQUEL is an antagonist at multiple neurotransmitter receptors in the brain: serotonin 5HT1A and 5HT2 (IC50s=717 & 148nM respectively), dopamine D1 and D2 (IC50s=1268 & 329nM respectively), histamine H1 (IC50=30nM), and adrenergic a1 and a2 receptors (IC50s=94 & 271nM, respectively). SEROQUEL has no appreciable affinity at cholinergic muscarinic and benzodiazepine receptors (IC50s>5000 nM).

The mechanism of action of SEROQUEL, as with other drugs having efficacy in the treatment of schizophrenia and acute manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder, is unknown. However, it has been proposed that this drug

[Brishen]

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[Velvet Elvis]

The first S in SSRI stands for selective. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. SSRIs are selective in that they only act on specific receptor sites. As a neurotransmitter, serotonin is used for stuff other than regulating mood. The less selective a drug is in its action the more side effects you are likely to have because it binds to other sites as well. Tricyclics bind to many more receptor sites and hence have more side effects.

Your brain is really good at maintaining homeostasis. Messing this up can kill you. Most MI is not caused by neurotransmitter deficits. It's caused by neurotransmitters failing to bind to receptors, for whatever reason. To say otherwise is putting the cart before the horse.

Not areas of the brain but particular types of receptor.

From Wikipedia

A neurotransmitter's effect is determined by its receptor. For example, GABA can act on both rapid or slow inhibitory receptors (the GABA-A and GABA-B receptor respectively). Many other neurotransmitters, however, may have excitatory or inhibitory actions depending on which receptor they bind to.

This isn't that easy to understand, but at least it's short:

http://web.indstate.edu/thcme/mwking/nerves.html

Here's a couple wikipedia articles central to what what we're talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotransmitter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin_receptor

It's probobly not the effect on serotonin that makes the difference though. It's likely seroquel acting on one of the other transmitters that you're noticing anyway. You already said that drugs that work on serotonin don't do much for you. In that case it might make more sense to think of your problem as having to do with something else entirely.

[GroovyGwen]

Damn VE - read much?

[AirMarshall]

VE, kudos on making explaining something very difficult in simple terms!!!!!

a.m.

[Brishen]

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