Serotonin has been implicated in the control of satiety for almost four decades. Historically, the insight that the appetite suppressant effect of fenfluramine is linked to serotonin has stimulated interest in and research into the role of this neurotransmitter in satiety. Various rodent models, including transgenic models, have been developed to identify the involved 5-HT receptor subtypes. This approach also required the availability of receptor ligands of different selectivity, and behavioural techniques had to be developed simultaneously which allow differentiating between unspecific pharmacological effects of these ligands and 'true' 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 3
IntroductionWhat are the behavioural and physiological mechanisms that promote satiety? How is satiety defined? Satiety can be seen as a behavioural state which arises from food consumption and suppresses the initiation of eating for a particular period of time [1]. This description alone suggests a high degree of complexity as peripheral post-ingestive and post-absorptive signals need to be relayed to the brain where they are integrated with other signals to produce (or not) the behavioural state called satiety. The state of satiety is brought about a process called satiation, where sensory, cognitive and early post-ingestive mechanisms bring feeding to a halt and thus stopping a meal. Promoting satiation alone must not necessarily lead to reduced total food intake as the frequency of meals could be increased subsequently. Many peripheral and brain mechanisms have been identified that are involved in the expression satiety and it has been suggested that serotonin accelerates satiation and prolongs satiety [2]. In the following, we will review the role of serotonin in satiety in more detail 1 . The reader will see that, despite immense progress made during the last years, the field is still far from being resolved.As serotonin (5-Hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) is a phylogenetically old neurotransmitter, various functions had time to evolve in different phyla, but maybe also in different species. 5-HT receptors exist in animal cells for millions of years and they are as old as adrenoreceptors ore some peptide receptors, possibly even older [5,6]. Even in invertebrates such as molluscs (Aplysia californica) and annelids (Hirudo medicinalis), 5-HT might functionally be related to food intake [7]. 5-HT is involved in feeding even in the honeybee where it has separate effects in the gut and in the insect brain [8]. In general, however, 5-HT seems rather to be involved in appetitive behaviours in invertebrates whereas it has more of a satiating effect in vertebrates [9]. In general, 5-HT neurons seem to be more extensively distributed throughout the body in lower animals than in higher animals including mammals where 5-HT neurones...