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• n  amine formed from histidine that stimulates gastric secretions and dilates blood vessels; released by the human immune system during allergic reactions

• They injected histamine into the monkeys' lower legs to produce an itch, and the STT neurons fired up.
• If air is bubbled through a test tube, histamine and vitamin C react with each other, releasing ammonia (the amine part of histamine) and eliminating the irritating chemical.
• Histamine is an organic chemical, a product of protein decomposition.

News & Articles

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• New treatment for schizophrenia?
  Giving a very large dose of famotidine (200 mg daily), sufficient amounts of the drug are able to penetrate the so-called blood-brain barrier to affect the histamine system in the brain.
  July 1, 2013 - Science Daily
• New treatment for schizophrenia discovered in Finland
  ( University of Helsinki ) A study at the University of Helsinki has revealed that a drug called famotidine can decrease the symptoms of persons suffering from schizophrenia. The research shows that the histamine system in the brain could have a central role in the treatment of psychosis, and could lead to the development of a new class of psychosis medications.
  July 1, 2013 - EurekAlert!

Quotes

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• Leonard Bernstein in New York Times
  In the drug industry, it's very easy for a chemist to tailor new molecules to block or not to block receptors, so it would be very easy to make modified molecules that will still be antipsychotic but won't block histamine receptors and won't cause... Solomon Snyder http://www.google.com/url?q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_H._Snyder&source=dictionary&usg=AFQjCNHLUsED2GyZ0TpKuiYVHleCLiKQ7A Ivanhoe http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm%3Fstoryid%3D15525&source=dictionary&usg=AFQjCNGnj3gVaQRRaqdfKBEH4pia-oD5uQ Feb 13, 2007 47384 64302 histamine So there are now a whole series of antihistamines that will counter these different histamine receptors," Dr. Bernstein said. "It was a key discovery."