Catecholamines and Autism
Source: Wikipedia As I mentioned a few posts back, it looks like endocrinology of the brain holds the key to treating autism and indeed most other psychiatric and neurological conditions. Today’s post is about one group of hormones/neurotransmitters called catecholamines. Due to the inter-relationships between hormones, neurotransmitters and electrolytes it is helpful to group them together. Catecholamines include three well known hormones: - epinephrine (adrenaline), norepinephrine (noradrenaline) and dopamine . For those of you that did chemistry at school, the reason for the odd sounding name, catecholamines, is that these hormones contain a benzene ring with two OHs attached. Catecholamines are very important hormones and also form the basis of several well-known drugs. In chemistry when you take molecule like a hormone and make a tiny change to it, it then is referred to as an...