Medically reviewed by Jamie Johnson, RDN Key Takeaways Tryptophan is an essential amino acid that naturally exists in certain foods.Your body turns tryptophan into serotonin, which has many roles, ...

Scientists have studied the main source of serotonin in the brain -- the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN). By studying how activating the brain's 'serotonin center' affects awake animals for the first time, ...

Is food the key to happiness? Emotional eating is certainly a real concept, but there are foods you can eat that naturally contain tryptophan, a serotonin-producing amino acid. Other ...

In our day-to-day lives, we're constantly making a slew of decisions, from immediate matters to prospects on the far horizon. But the evolutionary nuts-and-bolts of how our brains weigh these numerous ...

Serotonin helps you feel happier, calmer, and more focused. Dopamine makes you feel motivated, accomplished, and productive. Serotonin and dopamine deficiencies have been linked to conditions like ...

Whenever you feel joy or satisfaction, it's the result of a complex network of synapses firing in your brain at once. While it's hard to disentangle what exactly is responsible for your sense of ...