Dopamine and serotonin are neurotransmitters mostly associated with our sense of well-being, our moods and feelings of pleasure. These two neurotransmitters, along with norenpinephrine, regulate functions including our sensation of pleasure, pain, digestion, sleep, satiety and emotional response among many others. Imbalances of these chemical compounds can lead to health problems and serious health conditions. So let’s take a deeper look to understand the serotonin vs dopamine conundrum.
Serotonin and Dopamine: Their Relation to Depression
Serotonin and dopamine are all related to depression. Easily put, they are both substantially responsible for a person’s mood and impact the brain differently. While serotonin based depression causes anxiety, dopamine based depression shows symptoms like lack of zeal for life, lethargy and sluggishness. Now let's get close and reveal how they are related:
1. Serotonin and Depression
Currently, we can be quite sure that, as for depression, lack of serotonin is the most probably culprit as blood levels of serotonin can be measured, and they are shown to be lower in people who suffer from psychological conditions like depression.
Here are 2 possible ways of how serotonin can lead to depression:
- Researchers are of the belief that serotonin imbalance in the body can greatly influence a person’s mood and hence lead to depression. This imbalance can be caused due to a lack of receptor site able to receive the serotonin, low brain cell production of serotonin, shortage in the chemical tryptophan which is responsible for making serotonin among other possible causes. These glitches in the production or functioning of serotonin can lead to OCD, excess anger, panic, anxiety and most importantly depression.
- Another theory has been proposed by researchers as a possible cause. They believe that depression could develop based on the regeneration of brain cells which is possibly mediated by serotonin. According to Barry Jacobs, a PhD neuroscientist at Princeton, depression possibly occurs when new brain cells are under suppression, which Stresses out the brain and eventually leads to depression. According to him, Antidepressant Medications called SSRIs, which are designed to increase the levels of serotonin, in fact kick off the production of new brain cells, which then eases the suppression and stress on the cells and hence treats depression effectively.
Antidepressant medications like SSRIs and SNRIs are effective in reducing the symptoms of depression by working on serotonin levels in the brain, which pretty much confirms the theory, but so far, it is just a story with no definite tests to back it. We are still not sure how exactly these theories work. This is the first step in getting close to the serotonin vs dopamine war and now let's move to dopamine and depression.
2. Dopamine and Depression
Dopamine is one of the four "feel good" transmitters along with endorphins, oxytacin and of course serotonin. It is sometimes called the "motivation molecule" because it provides the focus and drive to be active and productive. It is also known as the "reward chemical" as it is responsible for our brain’s pleasure-reward-system. Dopamine plays a pivotal role in the brain’s functioning and greatly impacts our learning, mood, focus, sleep, concentration, working memory and even motor control.
Mostly depression is considered to be caused by a lack of serotonin, but lower levels of dopamine also impact the brain’s functioning and mood, leading to Adhd, depression, Parkinson’s, addictions, etc. It is no wonder why serotonin based antidepressants like SSRIs only work about 40% of the times and doctors have to resort to antidepressant medications like Bupropion, which work on low dopamine levels.
Serotonin vs Dopamine: Other Benefits They Provide
As is evident, both these neurotransmitters have special and important functions in the brain and can affect a person’s mood differently. Now let’s take a look at the benefits of both of these to get a better understanding of their functioning.
1. Serotonin
Following are a few facts about serotonin:
2. Dopamine
To get a better understanding of the serotonin vs dopamine war, here are more about dopamine:
Dopamine’s functionalities are still a work in progress, but following are a few pointers we have come to learn thus far: