Dopamine is made from Tyrosine & phenylalanine. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid, which means that it's vital that you get phenylalanine from your diet. Phenylalanine is converted into the amino acid Tyrosine in the liver, and then tyrosine must be transported into the brain. The body needs to have a healthy insulin response to do this. Once tyrosine is in the brain, it is made into Dopa by the enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase, and the cofactors for this are folate and oxygen (which is supplied by iron). Dopa is then converted into dopamine by DOPA dehydroxylase, and vitamin B6 is needed for this step.