The Role of Tryptophan and Tyrosine in Executive Function and Reward Processing

The serotonergic precursor tryptophan and the dopaminergic precursor tyrosine have been shown to be important modulators of mood, behaviour and cognition. Specifically, research on the function of tryptophan has characterised this molecule as particularly relevant in the context of pathological disorders such as depression. Moreover, a large body of evidence has now been accumulated to suggest that tryptophan may also be involved in executive function and reward processing. Despite some clear differentiation with tryptophan, the data reviewed in this paper illustrates that tyrosine shares similar functions with tryptophan in the regulation of executive function and reward, and that these processes in turn, rather than acting in isolation, causally influence each other.

• Publication year

  2020

• Venue

  International Journal of Tryptophan Research

• Publication date

  2020-10-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1177/1178646920964825PMID 33149600PMCID 7586026
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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