Word: serotonin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Like more tradtiional approaches, the latest obestity treatments try to lower an elevated set point by decreasing a person's appetite. But they have added a new twist by also affecting the level of a chemical in the brain called serotonin. A shortage of this chemical has been linked to depression and other mental ills. Serotonin may curb the appetite by helping a person feel full and satisfied. And, it turns out, a growing body of research suggests that fatty foods can increase the amount of serotonin in the brain. So it appears that some people who are obese...
...everyone who is depressed attempts suicide; nor does a low serotonin level automatically doom a person to self-destruction. According to Mann and his colleagues at Columbia and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, changes must occur in specific regions of the brain to create that danger. Their research, presented at last week's Neuroscience meeting, focuses on a section of white matter -- the orbital cortex -- that sits just above the eyes and modulates impulse control. In autopsies of 20 suicide victims, Mann's group found that in almost every case, not enough serotonin had reached that key portion...
Nowhere is this bonanza more apparent than with the research into the brain chemical called serotonin. One of the many signaling chemicals used by nerve cells to communicate with one another, serotonin is intricately linked to those parts of the brain that affect mood and impulse control. Nerve cells manufacture, release and absorb serotonin in quick bursts that ripple throughout the cerebrum. Although no one understands quite why, low levels of the chemical are associated with clinical depression. As a result, serotonin has become the target for a whole new genre of antidepressant drugs -- the most popular of which...
...commit suicide visit their doctor in the month prior to their death. Most of the time the physician finds nothing medically wrong with them and sends them home. Doctors may someday be able to give these people a blood test that measures their body's ability to manufacture serotonin. Those whose capacity is impaired would be considered at greatest risk of hurting themselves...
There is also a risk that research results could be abused. If suicide is linked to low serotonin levels, does that mean that violence against others can also be tied to depleted stores of the brain chemical? Scientists who are looking into that possibility are worried that their work could be used to label troubled children as incorrigible and excuse the lack of services designed to help them. "It's almost impossible to discuss scientifically," says Dr. Frederick Goodwin, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health. "People always overinterpret the science in this area...