Neurotransmitters regulate the body’s clock by reorganizing DNA

Serotonin and dopamine are often characterized as “feel good” chemicals that flood our brains during moments of pleasure. It’s true that those chemicals can help us feel good, but they’re more precisely described as neurotransmitters—chemicals that carry messages from one neuron to another. Research published in the last 5 years uncovered another function for these neurotransmitters: serotonin and dopamine can regulate gene expression in the brain by binding to histones, a class of proteins that act like spools for DNA to coil around. New research published in Nature has demonstrated that another neurotransmitter, histamine, can also bind to histones and does so in a way that helps regulate the body’s circadian clock (2025, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08371-3).