Serotonin in the Central Nervous System and Periphery

Serotonin in the Central Nervous System and Periphery

A Takada, G Curzon, editors

Amsterdam: Elsevier Science BV; 1995. 260 p

This book is part of the International Congress Series and contains the proceedings of the Symposium on Serotonin in the Central Nervous System and Periphery held in Nagoya, Japan, on April 1 -2, 1995. It is comprised of papers presented at the symposium and contains up-to-date information on the area, written by some of its top researchers, who were selected to participate in the symposium based on their expertise. It has become necessary for clinicians and scientists to focus on the basic science and fundamental actions of the new serotonin-acting drugs in order to understand their functions. This book attempts to provide such information in a timely fashion.

There are 7 sections in the book: Regulatory Mechanisms, Relationship with Feeding, Amines and Stress, Depression and Anxiety, Other Central Aspects, Vascular System, and Lung. The most useful and important section is the first, which covers the regulation of serotonin release, genes, and the pathophysiology of affective disorders. Even with a minimum of prior knowledge of the area, the clinician, by reading this section, can gain an understanding of how serotonergic drugs work. The section on depression and anxiety is a must-read for psychiatrists, though the majority of information refers to animal models. The relationship of serotonin and feeding behavior, pre- and postnatal stress reactions, antipsychotic medications, the psychoprotective effect of estrogen, learning and memory, Alzheimer’s disease, and physical health are also covered in the book.

Although this book suffers stylistically because of the number of different authors, it is, overall, a succinct, well-written, and extremely informative text. It provides recent information in the field of serotonin research and could prove to be a valuable teaching and research reference. We highly recommend this book to clinicians, who could apply it in their use of psychopharmacology, to biological researchers, who will find it a useful reference, and to residents in psychiatry, who may appreciate it as a learning tool.