Endocrinal Homeostasis

[TheHedonist99]

This is a huge question, as I believe it underlies virtually every genetic mental disorder/inconvenience there is. Take the serotonergic system, for example, and an individual who is depressed and (according to the current hypothesis) has low levels of serotonin. You could try and shift the balance by taking SSRIs, which block serotonin transporters (you know all this already), thus increasing serotonin levels in the synapses. Is there anyway to actually reset the balance altogether, so that the body produces more serotonin (without constantly taking serotonin precursors such as 5-HTP)? Also, what I don't get about this, is that if depressed individuals have lower levels of serotonin, shouldn't they have higher serotonin receptor densities and thus a higher sensitivity to serotonin, and thus should this not cancel out the effect of low serotonin? Thanks

 

[aced126]

I'm no biologist, but as far as I understand, production of serotonin isn't the only factor determining depression. There are many other factors involved like MAO-A/B (over)activity, faulty receptors on the pre/post-synpatic membrane, packaging the serotonin into vesicles prepared for secretion into the synaptic cleft. Trytophan hydroxylase which catalyses the synthesis of serotonin might be faulty. There are also many other factors involved like NMDA/AMPA systems etc. As far as I know there's no real way of "resetting" the balance. I'd say you are right about stating that homeostasis will occur. If for example we hypothetically inject loads of serotonin directly into many synaptic clefts, I could imagine that brains of depressives will further downregulate receptors, TPH, upregulate MAO etc in order to achieve homeostasis.

 

[TheHedonist99]

I am aware that depression isn't merely a 5HT deficiency, I was just using it as an example

 

[dopamimetic]

Yeah, this how-to-achieve-balance-in-the-big-picture is the key of what I am looking for ... I think there are so many possible origins of distortion and we should have every suffering individual somewhat scanned / tested to see where's the problem - but this is not yet possible to do in day-to-day practice.

Sometimes with trial-and-error the right medicine is found.. sometimes, with minor illnesses, maybe pushing just one button allows the neuronal network to achieve equilibrium again by itself.. and/or in combination with the right circumstances, the body & brain has such incredibly detailed mechanisms to repair itself (neuroplasticity)..

But then there are the cases where the repairing / defense systems are overloaded and busy all day to compensate all the dysfunctions so that serious disorders arise.

 

[sekio]

This is a huge question, as I believe it underlies virtually every genetic mental disorder/inconvenience there is.

Unfortunately for us, euphoria is a little more complex than just getting everything to homeostasis.