Nobel winner dies

ROCKVILLE, Md., Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Julius Axelrod, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, has died at the age of 92 at his home in Rockville, Md.

Axelrod helped discover how chemicals released by nerve cells in the brain regulate mood and behavior. He died Wednesday, said the National Institute of Mental Health, where he worked for most of his career.

Axelrod shared the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with two other scientists, Dr. Bernard Katz of Britain and Prof. Ulf von Euler of Sweden.

Their work was essential to the development of psychiatric drugs and others and led directly to the development of a class of antidepressants that includes Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil, the New York Times said.

Earlier, in the 1940's, before receiving his doctorate in pharmacology, Axelrod helped identify acetaminophen as the pain-relieving chemical in a common headache treatment of the day. The newly discovered substance was later developed and marketed under the brand name Tylenol.