Isovanillin is a phenolic aldehyde, an organic compound and isomer of vanillin. It is a selective inhibitor of aldehyde oxidase. It is not a substrate of that enzyme, and is metabolized by aldehyde dehydrogenase into isovanillic acid, which could make it a candidate drug for use in alcohol aversion therapy. Isovanillin can be used as a precursor in the chemical total synthesis of morphine. The proposed metabolism of isovanillin in rat has been described in literature, and is part of the WikiPathways machine readable pathway collection.