What Is Serotonin?
Serotonin Image via Wikipedia
Before anyone can understand what serotonin does, it is first important to provide at least a simple answer to the question of “what is serotonin“? While many people have heard of terms like dopamine, serotonin, melatonin, and any other “-nin” or “-mine”, they often do not have the basic understanding of what these do. While we may get into other topics on the site, it makes enough sense to take a look at what serotonin is, what it does, and what may occur should there not be enough, or maybe too much, of this chemical.
To begin with, serotonin is commonly thought of as a brain chemical, which it is, but it is found in its greatest quantities in “the gut”, or rather, the digestive tract. It is also a neurotransmitter, derived from the amino acid known as tryptophan, which means that it helps to relay one message from a part of the brain to another part of the brain. In this case, serotonin is one of the chemicals responsible for certain types of nerve impulses.
A fairly simple way of thinking of this would be to image nerves as a power cord or a cable, and that the impulses would be like sending an email or other electronic message along these cords or cables. Now, imagine that these cords began to breakdown and as they got old, that they began having “hiccups” that caused the message to not get there as quickly or with the same level of success. Serotonin, and chemicals like it, may be thought of as the maintenance service for these cords and cables. This is a very simplistic way of explaining it, and may leave a bit to be desired, but it may suffice for now.
Along with ensuring that these nerve impulses continue to fire as they are intended to, serotonin plays some important roles in the chemistry of the brain. It is commonly referred to in cases of depression and anxiety. Serotonin, along with dopamine, has a great deal of responsibility when it comes to a person’s mood, or state of being. Serotonin levels may be at least partially responsible for a person’s feelings of happiness, while dopamine is often linked to feelings of excitability.
Considering that serotonin is related to so many conditions of a person’s mood, it is no wonder that so many anti-anxiety and antidepressants target serotonin and other chemicals in the brain. Many of these drugs are what is called an SSRI, which stands for Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitor. In these drugs, the re-uptake of serotonin is inhibited, as the name implies, leaving it for other receptors and functions. What these are, and how they may work, is beyond this post and a bit past the understanding of myself anyway. Regardless, the target is serotonin, and the efficacy of these has been debated, but the question of whether they work or not is also outside the scope of what we’re up to here.
Additionally, serotonin is also responsible for some functions within the digestive tract, as we already mentioned that the highest concentrations of this chemical are actually in the gut. When food is ingested and enters the stomach, serotonin is released, causing the gut to contract around the food. Should there be an issue with the food, such as an irritation of some sort, the level of serotonin may be increased, possibly resulting in diarrhea as a result of increased gut speed and activity.
In mice and humans, serotonin is also linked with bone density. Since humans are the only main source of interest here, it should be known that elevated levels of serotonin in the bloodstream is linked with low bone density.
For now, this is a nice place to end the article and hopefully we’ve answered, at least in a simplistic way, what is serotonin. There are other topics that we can discuss at a later time, such as serotonin syndrome, issues with dopamine, and plenty more. The blog will continue to address the question of what is serotonin, while also expanding on information for a number of other related topics. If you’ve got information that can add to this post, or would like to see related information on the site, leave a comment, hit the like button, or maybe do both to let us know what you’re looking for and how we’re doing so far.