Fuller R W
Lilly Research Laboratories, Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN 46285.
Prog Drug Res. 1990;35:85-108. doi: 10.1007/978-3-0348-7133-4_3.
Advances in serotonin pharmacology, the development of drugs that intervene at specific sites to modify serotonergic function, have accompanied advances in the understanding of physiologic roles of serotonin present in neurons and elsewhere and of serotonin receptors that are widely distributed in brain and many peripheral tissues. The pharmacologic advances have sometimes been stimulated by developments in serotonin physiology, such as the recognition of multiple serotonin receptor subtypes, and in other cases have been a major factor in providing new insights into physiologic roles of serotonin. Drugs that modify serotonin function have a variety of therapeutic applications currently and many more potential therapeutic uses to be explored in the future. Having drugs that act with high specificity or selectivity on particular enzymes in serotonin biosynthesis, on particular serotonin receptors, or at other sites such as uptake carriers for serotonin not only offers the hope of improved clinical therapy in diseases caused by abnormal serotonergic function or in which alteration of serotonergic function can alleviate symptoms, but also provides valuable pharmacologic tools for learning more about serotonin physiology and probing the functional status of serotonergic systems. The next few years promise to yield important new serotonergic drugs.
5-羟色胺药理学的进展，即开发能作用于特定位点以改变5-羟色胺能功能的药物，与人们对神经元及其他部位存在的5-羟色胺的生理作用以及广泛分布于脑和许多外周组织中的5-羟色胺受体的认识进展相伴。5-羟色胺生理学的发展，如对多种5-羟色胺受体亚型的认识，有时会刺激药理学进展，而在其他情况下，药理学进展则是为5-羟色胺的生理作用提供新见解的主要因素。目前，改变5-羟色胺功能的药物有多种治疗应用，未来还有更多潜在治疗用途有待探索。拥有对5-羟色胺生物合成中的特定酶、特定5-羟色胺受体或其他位点（如5-羟色胺摄取载体）具有高特异性或选择性作用的药物，不仅为改善由异常5-羟色胺能功能引起的疾病或5-羟色胺能功能改变可缓解症状的疾病的临床治疗带来希望，还为更多了解5-羟色胺生理学和探究5-羟色胺能系统的功能状态提供了有价值的药理学工具。未来几年有望产生重要的新型5-羟色胺能药物。
