Maurice Rapport, a biochemist who discovered serotonin in the late 1940s, died in North Carolina. Working in a lab at the Cleveland Clinic, Rapport's work isolating this chemical, also called the "calming chemical," was revolutionary. At a time when little was known about the way the brain functioned, and psychoanalysis was the explanatory model for behavior, his discovery became a building block for understanding
"the regulation of mood, sleep, appetite, vomiting, sexuality, memory and learning, temperature regulation, cardiovascular function, and endocrine regulation. Low levels of serotonin have been associated with migraines, bipolar disorders, apathy, fear, feelings of worthlessness, insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, and depression."Interest was furthered by Sidney Udenfriend at the relatively new NIH labs whose collaborations produced assays, and their work eventually spread to other diseases including cancer, gynecology, and, most significantly, the development of drugs treating psychiatric conditions.