Comments on: A man with virtually no serotonin or dopamine

By: Kenneth Casey

Kenneth Casey — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:02:41 +0000

Perhaps the absence of depression in the case of reduced serotonin and dopamine levels is because it is not so much the quantity of each neurotransmitter independent of each other, but the amount of each in comparison or in proportion to each other which affects a person’s feelings of well-being.

This would be the case if these two neurotransmitters (NTs in the following text,) interacted with each other in a way in which the proper amount of dopamine was sufficient to positively impact a corresponding amount of serotonin. The decreased levels of both would result in less than ideal conditions, but these effects would be ameliorated in their impact due to the following factor — the quantities of each, though diminished, remain in the same proportion to each other.

On the other hand, under the set of conditions in which the quantity of one of these NTs is diminished while the other remains unchanged, (or normal,) the individual’s feelings of well-being are thrown out of balance, the direction corresponding to which of the NTs is diminished.

This is just an UN-educated guess, which I hope may carry enough truth (just a hair north of “0,”) to be of some use in cogitating on the causes of this enigma.

By: Serotonin

Serotonin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:31:24 +0000

These article shows how little do we know about serotonin, its receptors and precursors. But we still give these type of medicine to people and test it on them.

Shame on US!

By: Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:57:10 +0000

Tried any medicine to raise your dopamine level instead?

By: samer moukaddem

samer moukaddem — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 05:32:08 +0000

hello
i used to take many medicine to raise my serotonine level in my brain
i ve been 10 years in this way
please please i need some help to get me out of this……………….
thanks a lot if anyone could help…..

By: Wendi

Wendi — Fri, 06 May 2011 02:25:35 +0000

However, serotonin is not exactly a “hapy brain chemcial”. It is actually a mood regulator. Dopamine however IS a “feel good” neurotransmitter.

My theories on why he wasn’t depressed are…

1. He was able to generate just enough dopamine to keep himself happy.

2. Another feel good hormone is phenyethylamine, it could have been he was able to produce enough of this to keep himself happy.

3. If serotonin IS an anti-depressant, he was able to make enough of it to mantain a happy disposition.

4. He DID have just enough serotonin to keep him happy (in the case it is the anti-epressant neurotransmitter).

5. There IS a type of depression that we do not fully see as ‘true depression’. There are actually various types of depression, but not all of them have the classic stereotyped “oh, life is horribly unbarable…” sadness. This depression has sympoms like apethy, lethargy, chronic boredom, fatigue and thus, feeling the need to sleep a lot, (otherwise known has ‘the blahs’ by Julia Ross) which it sounds like he had. Thus, he could have very well been depressed, just not the sad, pitiful “woe is me” type we so often diagnose as depression.

By: Foxx

Foxx — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:33:35 +0000

If someone had no serotonin how would they react to new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? would they be violent?