{"id":892,"date":"2004-05-11T02:55:52","date_gmt":"2004-05-11T02:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=892"},"modified":"2011-05-01T18:32:59","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T23:32:59","slug":"neuroscience-lack-of-serotonin-may-mean-lack-of-flexibility-in-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=892","title":{"rendered":"neuroscience: lack of serotonin may mean lack of flexibility in behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Serotonin, an important neurotransmitter, has  almost become a household word, thanks to antidepressants such as Prozac  and Zoloft, which work to increase serotonin levels in the brain. Yet  its precise role in the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain involved  in learning and decision-making, remains poorly understood. Scientists  have long thought that there was a link between the brain&#8217;s inability to  properly regulate serotonin in the prefrontal cortex and various  psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive  disorder. A study by British researchers in the May 7 <em>Science<\/em> offers  evidence that this may be the case, showing that a lack of serotonin  leads to inflexible and repetitive behavior, a symptom of many of these  disorders. Hannah Clarke of Cambridge University and colleagues depleted  serotonin in the prefrontal cortex of marmoset monkeys. They found that  those monkeys tended to repeat certain actions instead of adapting them  to new circumstances.<\/span><\/p>\n<h6><em>This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the <\/em>Boston Globe&#8217;s<em> Health\/Science section on 5\/11\/2004.<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Serotonin, an important neurotransmitter, has almost become a household word, thanks to antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft, which work to increase serotonin levels in the brain. Yet its precise role in the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=892\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boston-globe-3","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=892"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1055,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions\/1055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}