Current cigarette smokers have reduced monoamine oxidase (MAO) and there is evidence that this is a pharmacological effect of tobacco smoke exposure rather than a biological characteristic of smokers. This article summarizes human and animal studies documenting the inhibitory effects of tobacco smoke on MAO and discusses MAO inhibition in the context of smoking epidemiology, MAO inhibitor compo...

As with many psychiatric drugs, the discovery of irreversible MAOIs was serendipitous. While being used as an antitubercular agent in the 1950s, iproniazid—a derivative of the hydrazine compound isocarboxazid—was observed to have significant antidepressant properties. Almost at the same time as the discovery of TCAs such as amitriptyline and imipramine (which were also discovered by chance), MA...

Abuse of monoamine oxidase inhibitors is not common but there are a few cases of addiction in the literature. Most of these patients had an additional diagnosis, either history of past drug abuse or personality disorder and MAOI withdrawal symptoms have been reported. We encountered three patients who received MAOI under psychiatric care. They were all self medicated by increasing the doses on ...

Most of the actions of sex hormones are mediated by specific cytosolic receptors in target tissues, translocating to the cell nucleus where they exert their effects (Buller & O'Malley, 1976; McEwen ef al., 1978). An effective means of monitoring changes in gene products resulting from hormonal stimulation is to measure enzyme activities in target tissues (McEwen et al., 1978). Sex steroids affe...