Taking 25mg to 50mg vitamin B6 once or twice daily with meals will also augment tryptophan-serotonin conversion, since B6 activates the decarboxylase enzyme that converts 5HTP to serotonin. Young notes that increased brain production of serotonin through tryptophan supplementation does not automatically increase serotonin nerve activity. Young's research indicates that at low levels of psychobiologic arousal, there will be adequate neuronal serotonin to support the correlative low-level serotonin nerve activity, even when nerve serotonin levels are low. At higher levels of arousal, however, the more rapid turnover of serotonin in the synaptic gap will require higher levels of serotonin production to adequately maintain the greater activity of serotonin circuits. Van Praag's research has shown that for many people suffering depression, combining the amino-acid tyrosine with tryptophan works much better than taking tryptophan alone.
Tyrosine is the precursor for both dopamine and noradrenaline.
Various forms of defective impulse control and obsessive compulsive disorders are also strongly affected by serotonin nerve activity. Chronic alcoholism may also have a serotonin component. This chronic alcoholism may involve a vicious spiral of a brief alcohol induced increase of serotonin neural activity, with consequent sense of well being, combined with an ever worsening baseline state of serotonin nerve activity due to alcohol's impairment of brain tryptophan transport. In recent years, melatonin has gained the reputation as the natural answer to insomnia. Yet the fact that melatonin is made in the pineal gland from serotonin is frequently overlooked.