Abstract
Most of the evidence relating low brain serotonin levels to psychopathology is circumstantial. For example, the relationship between low levels of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid in the cerebrospinal fluid of depressed or aggressive patients (van Praag, 1994) is an association that does not necessarily imply cause, while the ability of antidepressants to potentiate serotonin function (Blier and de Montigny, 1994) may be more relevant to the action of antidepressant drugs than the etiology of psychopathology. The acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) technique is designed to test directly the effects of low brain serotonin in humans. Subjects ingest an amino acid mixture containing all the essential amino acids except for tryptophan. This induces protein synthesis (Moja et al., 1991), and as tryptophan is incorporated into protein its level in tissues and plasma falls, by as much as 80 to 90%. Testing is usually done five hours after ingestion of the amino acid mixture, when plasma tryptophan reaches its lowest level. The control treatment is a similar amino acid mixture containing the correct amount of tryptophan for a good protein source.
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© 1996 Plenum Press, New York
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Young, S.N., Pihl, R.O., Benkelfat, C., Palmour, R., Ellenbogen, M., Lemarquand, D. (1996). The Effect of Low Brain Serotonin on Mood and Aggression in Humans. In: Filippini, G.A., Costa, C.V.L., Bertazzo, A. (eds) Recent Advances in Tryptophan Research. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 398. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0381-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0381-7_5
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