ArticleBMC women's health2005
An overlooked connection: serotonergic mediation of estrogen-related physiology and pathology.
Article in BMC women's health, 2005. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 122 citations in OpenAlex.
- Efficacy and Safety of Hormone Replacement Combined With Escitalopram in the Treatment of Chronic Insomnia in Perimenopausal Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Trial
- Perioperative esketamine combined with butorphanol versus butorphanol alone for pain management following video-assisted lobectomy: a randomized controlled trial.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2025Trial
- Opioid-Free Anesthesia Improved the Quality of Recovery After Thyroidectomy Through Pre-Emptive and Preventive Analgesia: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Drug design, development and therapy · 2025Trial
- Psychedelics and women's mental health: the effects of female sex hormones on psychedelics' efficacy and tolerability.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- Physiological Mechanisms in Pregnancy and Their Relevance to the Clinical Management of Perinatal Mental Illness.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Progesterone-Dependent Changes in Platelet Activation Without Morphological Variation in Diestrus Mares.Veterinary sciences · 2026Article
- Assessing the association between combined oral contraceptive use, selected biomarkers, and depressive episodes among premenopausal women: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2026Article
- Do sex and gender matter in the pharmacological treatment of depression?Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Review
- Psychosomatic interplay in postmenopausal osteoporosis: from neuroendocrine mechanisms to structured psychological therapies and long-term management.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- Females in Psychedelic Research: A Perspective for Advancing Research and Practice.ACS pharmacology & translational science · 2025Review
- Involvement of Peripheral Serotonin in Blood Cells in Healthy Cyclical Mares of Different Ages.Veterinary sciences · 2025Article
- "An exploratory randomized, double-blind, placebo- controlled trial protocol on combined Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and adjunctFrontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Potential Differences in Psychedelic Actions Based on Biological Sex.Endocrinology · 2024Review
- The role of neurosteroids in posttraumatic stress disorder and alcohol use disorder: A review of 10 years of clinical literature and treatment implications.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2024Review
- Review
- Review
- Estrogen deficiency reduces maximal running capacity and affects serotonin levels differently in the hippocampus and nucleus accumbens in response to acute exercise.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- The impact of estradiol on serotonin, glutamate, and dopamine systems.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Review
- Testosterone and Prolactin Perturbations Possibly Associated with Reduced Levels of β-Arrestin1 in Mononuclear Leukocytes of Women with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- The Aging Enteric Nervous System.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn humans, serotonin has typically been investigated as a neurotransmitter. However, serotonin also functions as a hormone across animal phyla, including those lacking an organized central nervous system. This hormonal action allows serotonin to have physiological consequences in systems outside the central nervous system. Fluctuations in estrogen levels over the lifespan and during ovarian cycles cause predictable changes in serotonin systems in female mammals. DISCUSSION: We hypothesize that some of the physiological effects attributed to estrogen may be a consequence of estrogen-related changes in serotonin efficacy and receptor distribution. Here, we integrate data from endocrinology, molecular biology, neuroscience, and epidemiology to propose that serotonin may mediate the effects of estrogen. In the central nervous system, estrogen influences pain transmission, headache, dizziness, nausea, and depression, all of which are known to be a consequence of serotonergic signaling. Outside of the central nervous system, estrogen produces changes in bone density, vascular function, and immune cell self-recognition and activation that are consistent with serotonin's effects. For breast cancer risk, our hypothesis predicts heretofore unexplained observations of the opposing effects of obesity pre- and post-menopause and the increase following treatment with hormone replacement therapy using medroxyprogesterone. SUMMARY: Serotonergic mediation of estrogen has important clinical implications and warrants further evaluation.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.