Serotonin receptors in cognitive behaviors

The serotonergic system appears to play a role in behaviors that involve a high cognitive demand and in memory improvement or recovery from impaired cognitive performance, as made evidence after administration of serotonin 5-HT 2A/5-HT 2C or 5-HT 4 receptor agonists or 5-HT 1A or 5-HT 3 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 by these and other serotonin receptor subtypes in cognition is likely to result from the recent availability of new specific ligands and new molecular tools, such as gene knock-out and transgenic mice.