chemicals of depression and happiness

[gib65]

Does anybody know what the main neuro-chemical(s) or horomone(s) are that are most closely associated with depression? What I mean is, in those who suffer from depression, what is the chemical that is found in excess while in a depressed state (or is it a deficiency in some chemical)? What about happiness?

 

Also, is there an online chart listing the neuro-chemicals/horomones most closely associated with the whole set of human emotions? Or is this question too vague?

[iNow]

It is certainly a combination of neurotransmitters which are involved. However, you often see a common antidepressent medication known as an SSRI, which stands for "selective seratonin reuptake inhibitor." In other words, the medication works by helping to increase the amount of seratonin.

 

In response to your other questions, I found the following .pdf file that seems pretty thorough:

 

http://www.neuroanatomy.wisc.edu/coursebook/neuro5(2).pdf

 

 

Then, there's also always wiki:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotransmitter

 

 

Enjoy!

[gib65]

Thanks iNow

[blazarwolf]

I was gonna say dopamine is huge, but wow thats a awsome pdf. There are so many factors that regulate such things in the brain, its really not that well understood. One thing to think about is not just the transmitters, but the receptor site... Receptor sites may have more of a ability to naturally regulate. I was recently reading on the prefrontal cortex, and it was stated that depressed people have activity (via PET scan) located in different regions than happy people. To think that perhaps location and concintration of receptor sites may vary between these regions. There are also, many times slightly diffrent versions of the same chemical, the brain is known to use a function called Affinity to regulate how much and where these chemicals will be used.