Aron Mosnaim

Aron David Mosnaim is a neuroscientist, researcher, and academic. He is an emeritus professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and an emeritus adjunct professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.

Mosnaim is most known for his research covering the areas of basic and clinical neuro- and immunopharmacology of biogenic amines and opioid peptides in neuropsychiatric conditions, including depression, headache pain, as well as movement and post-traumatic stress disorders. He has co-edited four scientific books on Noncatecholic Phenylethylamines (2 volumes), Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Tardive Dyskinesia.

Mosnaim has served as a Consultant to the Pan American Health Organization (1982–1985), Member of the United States Pharmacopeia Convention (1990 and 1995), and Director of International Neuropsychiatry Consultants (1987–2020). Additionally, he is a Fellow of The Chemical Society (1977) and a Senior Fellow of the American Institute of Therapeutics (2019). His laboratory demonstrated the presence of phenylethylamine, commonly viewed as the endogenous amphetamine, in mammalian tissues, and his work elucidated this amine’s in vivo and in vitro brain metabolic pathway. His work, animal models, contributed to establish phenylethylamine brain levels as a biological marker for various neuropsychiatric disorders, and to evaluate its brain changes in response to different classes of psychotropic drugs. Further research identified some of the physiological functions, and described relevant behavior and toxicological effects of phenylethylamine and various structurally related trace amines.

Mosnaim reported plasma levels of the endogenous opioid pentapeptide methionine-enkephalin in various patient populations, and the effect of selected classes of drugs on its degradation kinetics, suggesting that its significant increase in chronic cluster and migraine patients during an acute headache episode could serve as a biological marker for these illnesses. He also clarified reports of the activity of platelet monoamine oxidase and the role of dietary phenylethylamine and tyramine in the etiology of migraine headaches.

Mosnaim contributed to document the association of tardive dyskinesia and drug-induced parkinsonism, and in identifying sub-types, cognitive deficits, and some of the risk factors associated with increased vulnerability to this condition. He participated in studies finding comorbidity of pain, dermatological and allergic conditions, as well as decreased natural killer cell activity, in posttraumatic stress disorder patients. He reported the decrease of this immune function in septic shock and human immunodeficiency virus-1 positive individuals, as well as its significant increase by various substances with widely different chemical structures and biological activities, e.g., enkephalins, α-interferon, interleukin-2, taxol, and lipopolysaccharide.