One of the alkaloid compounds found in harmal and harmala plants; a chemical substance with psychoactive and medicinal properties.
From harmal + -in suffix denoting a chemical compound. Scientific nomenclature follows the convention of naming compounds after their natural source plants.
Harmalin was isolated and studied in the early 1900s—it's an MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor) that researchers have investigated for treating depression, and it appears naturally in multiple plant families across different continents, suggesting convergent evolution of brain-active chemistry.
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