Comparison of the performance of different DFT methods in the calculations of the molecular structure and vibration spectra of serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT)

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) is a monoamine neurotransmitter which plays an important role in treating acute or clinical stress. The comparative performance of different density functional theory (DFT) methods at various basis sets in predicting the molecular structure and vibration spectra of serotonin was reported. The calculation results of different methods including mPW1PW91, HCTH, SVWN, PBEPBE, B3PW91 and B3LYP with various basis sets including LANL2DZ, SDD, LANL2MB, 6-31G, 6-311++G and 6-311+G* were compared with the experimental data. It is remarkable that the SVWN/6-311++G and SVWN/6-311+G* levels afford the best quality to predict the structure of serotonin. The results also indicate that PBEPBE/LANL2DZ level show better performance in the vibration spectra prediction of serotonin than other DFT methods.

► We investigated the molecular structure and vibrational spectra of 5-HT by DFT.
► LSDA/6-311++G and 6-311+G* afford the best quality to predict the structure of 5-HT.
► PBEPBE/LANL2DZ show better performance to predict the vibration spectra of 5-HT.