2min chapter

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How Foods and Nutrients Control Our Moods

Huberman Lab

CHAPTER

Serotonin Is a Neuromodulator

Most people are just not aware that Sugar isn't just operating at the level of taste. It's doing it subconsciously and disrupting wage dopamine systems. More than 90% of the serotonin that we make is in our gut, but here's the deal. Most of the serotonin that impacts our mood and our mental state is not in our gut most of it is in the brain.

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Speaker 1
So dopamine is really powerful and it's not just the thought of reward. It is the molecule of Desire. It's the molecule of wanting not just a molecule of having and a book since people often ask for book recommendations. I don't know the author personally. Am I love the book it's called the molecule of more. It's a terrific book. I wish I had written it frankly. But if you want to learn more about dopamine reward prediction error and how dopamine regulates various aspects of your emotional an optional life. It's a terrific read dopamine is what's going to lead us to want to eat more of something or to not want more of something because dopamine really is about craving it's about motivation and it's about desire and as I mentioned these amino acids sensors in our gut are detecting how many amino acids but they're also detecting which amino acids It's and there's a particular amino acid called l-tyrosine which comes from food. You can look up online which foods contain l-tyrosine. It is in Meats. It is and nuts it is also in some plant-based Foods wage l-tyrosine is the precursor to a couple of other molecules like El Tope etcetera that make dopamine and so there's a misconception out there that off most of the serotonin is in our gut and most of the dopamine is in our guts. And therefore our mood is in our gut that's not quite the way it works. Okay. We'll talk about serotonin a moment. But dopamine is synthesized from the amino acids that you eat. However, the dopamine neurons that give rise to these feelings of good or wanting more or desire and motivation often as I'd in the brain. So we don't want to get too confused. We want to respect and honor the power of the gut and this may go pathway, but it's really neurons within your brain that drive the pursuit and decision-making. So what dog Mean, well, some people make too little dopamine some people make so little dopamine that they need prescription dopamine. They need l-dopa people with Parkinson's take l-dopa and other Lake Compounce to increase dopamine because Parkinson's is associated with deficits and movement starts as a Tremor actually starts at some other things that are interesting. We'll talk about in a moment. But Parkinson's wage is a depression.

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