ABSTRACT
Large doses of any medicine may cause cardiotoxicity, or neurotoxicity, but when toxicity occurs it usually does so as a result of the drug's shared ability to stimulate the same set of receptors as are stimulated by abused drugs. Serotonin syndrome was first recognised in 1991 by psychiatrist Harvey Sternbach. Mild cases have been increasingly recognised, making it difficult to determine the true frequency. Symptoms are due to excessive serotonin activity throughout the nervous system as a result of medication exposure. Since the 1990s, the concept of primary ‘inherited’ arrhythmia syndromes, or ion channelopathies, has developed from advances in molecular genetics. Alterations in genes coding for membrane proteins, such as ion channels or their associated proteins responsible for the generation of cardiac action potentials, cause specific malfunctions which eventually lead to cardiac arrhythmias.
