Erminio Costa, Ph.D., a discoverer of how serotonin works demonstrated the importance of neurotransmitter turnover rates in understanding neuronal function. He also determined that anti-anxiety drugs act by facilitating inhibitory brain mechanisms and that receptors function as supramolecular entities where transmitters and co-transmitters act to assure synaptic plasticity. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1982.
The Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum has gathered the following growing list of resources concerning Dr. Costa: