Many of the trace amines-more correctly called biogenic amines- have
been known for decades, but because of their tiny concentra- tions (0.
01-100 ng/g) in brain, it was only after the development of
sophisticated analytical techniques (such as mass spectrometry) that
they could be identified and quantitated in nervous tissue. There are
now more than 20 of them and most are related to the catecholamines and
5-hydroxytryptamine both structurally and metabolically. Their
pharmacological and physiological properties make them prime candidates
for a transmitter or neuromodulator role and many of them elicit
profound behavioral syndromes after injection--one of them,
phenylethylamine, has even been referred to as nature's amphetamine. In
the clinical sphere several have been shown to be involved in:
Parkinsonism, schizophrenia, depression, agoraphobia, aggression,
hyperkinesis, migraine, hypertensive crises, hypertyrosinemia, he- patic
encephalopathy, epilepsy, and cystic fibrosis. Thus the research
reported here on these intriguing "new" substances will be of great
interest to psychiatrists, neurologists, biochemists, pharmacologists,
physiologists, psychologists, behaviorists and indeed to all those
working in the neurosciences and related fields today. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is based on the proceedings of Trace Amines and the
Neurosciences, a meeting held at the University of Alberta, Edmonton,
July 19-21, 1983. This meeting was organized as a Satellite Meeting of
the Ninth Meeting of the International Society for Neurochemistry, held
in Vancouver, July 10-15, 1983. International organizers of the
satellite meeting were Drs. A. A. Boulton (Saskatoon), W. G. Dewhurst
(Edmonton), G. B. Baker (Edmonton), and M. Sandler (London).
