Serotonin receptors and cognitive behaviour--an update.

ABSTRACT

The serotonergic system appears to play a role in behaviors that involve a high cognitive demand and in memory improvement or recovery from an impaired cognitive performance. This is made evident after administration of 5-HT(2A/2C), and 5-HT4 receptor agonists, or 5-HT1A, 5-HT3 and probably 5-HT1B receptor antagonists. These serotonin receptor subtypes are localized on 'cognitive' pathways, with the hippocampus and frontal cortex as the main target structures. A better understanding of the role played in cognition by these and other serotonin receptor subtypes is likely to result from the recent availability of highly specific ligands such as 5-HT1A, 5-HT1B, and 5-HT2A receptor antagonists, and new molecular tools such as gene knock-out mice, especially inducible mice for which the genetic alteration can be restricted both temporally and anatomically.