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Nutrients affecting brain composition and behaviorThis review examines the changes in brain composition and in various brain functions, including behavior, that can follow the ingestion of particular foods or nutrients. It details those that are best understood: the increases in serotonin, catecholamine, or acetylcholine synthesis that can occur subsequent to food-induced increases in brain levels of tryptophan, tyrosine, or choline; it also discusses the various processes that must intervene between the mouth and the synapse, so to speak, in order for a nutrient to affect neurotransmission, and it speculates as to additional brain chemicals that may ultimately be found to be affected by changes in the availability of their nutrient precursors. Because the brain chemicals best known to be nutrient dependent overlap with those thought to underlie the actions of most of the drugs used to treat psychiatric diseases, knowledge of this dependence may help the psychiatrist to understand some of the pathologic processes occurring in his/her patients, particularly those with appetitive symptoms. At the very least, such knowledge should provide the psychiatrist with objective criteria for judging when to take seriously assertions that particular foods or nutrients do indeed affect behavior (e.g., in hyperactive children). If the food can be shown to alter neurotransmitter release, it may be behaviorally-active; however, if it lacks a discernible neurochemical effect, the likelihood that it really alters behavior is small.
Document ID
20040089493
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Wurtman, R. J.
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, United States)
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
December 1, 1987
Publication Information
Publication: Integrative psychiatry : IP
Volume: 5
Issue: 4
ISSN: 0735-3847
Subject Category
Aerospace Medicine
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAG2-210
CONTRACT_GRANT: NS-21231
CONTRACT_GRANT: MH-28783
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
NASA Program Space Medicine
NASA Discipline Regulatory Physiology
Review, Academic
Review
NASA Discipline Number 21-50
Non-NASA Center

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