Deuterated perlolyrine was synthesizedstarting from deuterated tryptophan via acid-catalyzed ring-closure, aromatisationand hydrolysis, with a yield of 11.
A third line of research depends on the fact that serotonin is made from tryptophan, a substance the body cannot synthesise, and so must ingest from food.
Tryptophan in our diet is broken down – by a group of gut microbes called bifidobacteria – into smaller metabolites that can cross the blood-brain barrier.
Essential amino acids, or EAAs, are amino acids that our body needs but cannot produce on its own, and there are 9 of them: Histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine.
" If you take patients who have recovered from depression and you deplete their brains of tryptophan, their depression will reoccur within a really short period of time, within minutes to hours" .