Humans And Lobsters Use Serotonin For Dominance Hierarchies

[Travis]

Better to rule in lobster hell than serve in lobster heaven. Hand me the tryptophan.

Somehow that reminded me of the movie Slingblade.

 

[Travis]

That Peterson guy seems to be okay. I found only one article of his on serotonin:

Pihl, Robert O., and Jordan B. Peterson. "Alcohol, serotonin, and aggression." Alcohol Research and Health 17.2 (1993): 113.

It seems to check-out. It's a .pdf that was copied off-center so I can't copy-paste any quotes, but he says a bit about low serotonin and aggression. Alcohol can cause a decrease in serotonin in some cases. This has been confirmed experimentally:

Badawy, AA-B., et al. "Decrease in circulating tryptophan availability to the brain after acute ethanol consumption by normal volunteers: implications for alcohol-induced aggressive behaviour and depression." Pharmacopsychiatry28.S 2 (1995): 93-97.

After giving subjects vodka and orange juice, they checked the Fernstrom ratio of their plasma. This is the ratio of tryptophan over the sum of the five competing amino acids. This has been consistently found to be a very good predictor of brain serotonin syntheisis. Tryptophan uptakes into the brain and converts to serotonin almost immediately. The brain serotonin changes can be accurately predicted by measuring just this ratio. The reason why tryptophan is so volatile is that it is the only amino acid that binds specifically to the plasma protein albumin. This has been studied in great detail, and you could even say that albumin has specific tryptophan binding domains.

The present results have clearly demonstrated that acute ethanol consumption by normal male volunteers lowers circulating tryptophan availability to the brain, as determined by the Trp/ΣLNAA ratio, an effect almost certain to result in a decrease in brain tryptophan and, hence 5-HT synthesis.

The control group drank orange juice alone. This is probably why the ratio increases. This is usually explained by the effect of insulin, as it pulls the completing amino acids into cells. The absolute tryptophan didn't raise; the denominator increased.

He thinks that this happens because of increased tryptophan pyrrolase activity in the liver. This breaks-open the tryptophan ring and creates kynurenine and a little nicotinic acid. But it could also be explained by the fact that alcohol also lowers serum free fatty acids. Free fatty acids strongly displace tryptophan from serum albumin.

Crouse, John R., et al. "Role of acetate in the reduction of plasma free fatty acids produced by ethanol in man." Journal of lipid research 9.4 (1968): 509-512.

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So it seems like alcohol can predictably lower brain serotonin, as long as it's kept in range. People with liver failure have a greatly increased level of brain serotonin, and this is explained by increased serum free fatty acids.

Knell, A. J., et al. "Dopamine and serotonin metabolism in hepatic encephalopathy." Br Med J 1.5907 (1974): 549-551.

Concentrations of HVA and 5-HIAA were substantially increased in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with hepatic encephalopathy.

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So you might predict that hard alcohol (without sugar) would depress serotonin the most; things like martinis, shots, ect...

But if you drink so much that you slow your liver—but there are other things involved like retinol and unsaturated fats—then the opposite can occur. You end-up nearly comatose with an increase in brain serotonin and/or dopamine. Homovanillic acid is the metabolite of dopamine, in the same way that 5-HTAA is the metabolite of serotonin. This is also greatly increased.

Come to think of it, I do feel a bit more clear-headed after a martini sometimes but drinking things with sugar seem to have a completely different effect. I always thought the rage that accompanies whiskey sometimes was due to some unidentified wood extract, perhaps a tannin. But now I'm not sure, it could simply be low serotonin I suppose.

But ethanol is also thought to work directly on the GABA and glycine receptors, so the effects are complicated by that.

 

[Lurker]

Interesting report @Travis. Alcohol is somewhat unpredictable. Tequila is another one that seems to cause aggression. I don't drink much anymore but unsurprisingly I've found vodka and gin to be the cleanest.

I'm into JBP podcast #20 and he had a few comments regarding "dominance hierarchies" that were relevant to the conversation. He mentioned a colleague of his stated that the terminology was not correct but seemed to get the point across to most people. I don't think he proposed an alternative at the time. He also specifically mentioned aggression was not the only way to rise in the hierarchy. In fact it was suboptimal in that coercive force required much more energy that is not required in a stable system. Aggression is not a sustainable strategy for staying on top. Sounds legit.

 

[Hugh Johnson]

Interesting report @Travis. Alcohol is somewhat unpredictable. Tequila is another one that seems to cause aggression. I don't drink much anymore but unsurprisingly I've found vodka and gin to be the cleanest.

I'm into JBP podcast #20 and he had a few comments regarding "dominance hierarchies" that were relevant to the conversation. He mentioned a colleague of his stated that the terminology was not correct but seemed to get the point across to most people. I don't think he proposed an alternative at the time. He also specifically mentioned aggression was not the only way to rise in the hierarchy. In fact it was suboptimal in that coercive force required much more energy that is not required in a stable system. Aggression is not a sustainable strategy for staying on top. Sounds legit.

Humans have two ways of gaining status, dominance and prestige. Ray Peat has huge status in my mind, and it's all prestige. A biker gang is all dominance, but they do have status. Only in non-social anuimals which do not cooperate is aggression the only way of gaining status, because if, say, a chimp leader is too much of a **** it is going to get torn apart by three lower status males tired of his ***t. In humans there is always a cooperative component, even the biker gang follows some rules of that make it somewhat honorable. If they were purely abusive even to outsiders, they would not survive.

 

[lollipop]

Humans have two ways of gaining status, dominance and prestige. Ray Peat has huge status in my mind, and it's all prestige. A biker gang is all dominance, but they do have status. Only in non-social anuimals which do not cooperate is aggression the only way of gaining status, because if, say, a chimp leader is too much of a **** it is going to get torn apart by three lower status males tired of his ***t. In humans there is always a cooperative component, even the biker gang follows some rules of that make it somewhat honorable. If they were purely abusive even to outsiders, they would not survive.

To your point, and in a strange turn of the wheel bikers seem to be protectors now:

Bikers Escort Bullied 10-Year-old Boy to School With Dignity - Good News Network

And here:

Bullied Teen Who Skipped Prom Gets Party of Her Own From 120 Bikers - Good News Network

 

[Hugh Johnson]

To your point, and in a strange turn of the wheel bikers seem to be protectors now:

Bikers Escort Bullied 10-Year-old Boy to School With Dignity - Good News Network

And here:

Bullied Teen Who Skipped Prom Gets Party of Her Own From 120 Bikers - Good News Network

I should have specified I was speaking about the criminal biker clubs. Those guys you linked are not scary at all, no more than any large group of manly men. Even then, the criminal types do some policing. For example Hell's Angels had forbidden the sale of opiates in a city up north around here.

 

[lollipop]

I should have specified I was speaking about the criminal biker clubs. Those guys you linked are not scary at all, no more than any large group of manly men. Even then, the criminal types do some policing. For example Hell's Angels had forbidden the sale of opiates in a city up north around here.

Interesting.