If we can make Melatonin pills to help us sleep, why can’t we make Seratonin pills to make us happy?

Question

I take Melatonin most nights to sleep better. Sure would love to have a serotonin pill as well.

In: Biology

Answer 1

I mean, SSRIs are essentially that, a pill that attempts to increase your brain’s uptake of serotonin. But mood and mental wellbeing is way, way more complicated than falling asleep for the night. We know what the brain uses seratonin for, mostly, but we don’t really understand how that translates to depression or happiness. And there’s a dozen or a hundred other molecules in the brain that also influence that, and there’s a thousand things outside of the brain too. There’s a reason that people will try a bunch of different SSRIs (that seemingly work essentially the same) to try and get results.