Acute tryptophan depletion – converging evidence for decreasing central nervous serotonin synthesis in rodents and humans We read the comment provided by Simon N. Young (1) on the articles (2–5) in the special issue of Acta Psychiatrica Scandi-navica (6) dealing with the acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) methodology with great interest. ATD is a pharmacological method designed to lower central nervous system (CNS) syn-thesis of the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-HT) for a brief per-iod that can also be used in both adults and young people (7). As 5-HT plays an important role in behavioral inhibition (8– 10) and other important processes in the brain (11–14), ATD is a translational method to study the effects of changes in CNS 5-HT function that has particular value, as discussed at a recent symposium dedicated to the role of 5-HT in psychopa-thology (7–11, 15). The author of this particular comment expressed concerns that ATD might not always decrease CNS 5-HT synthesis and that the lack of the amino acid histidine (HIS) in the depletion mixtures used might influence the results due to the potential role of 5-HT–histamine interactions in any observed outcome. We appreciate the comments made and would like to address the issues raised, point by point. Young argues that 'there is no evidence that ATD does always decrease seroto-nin release (in humans)'. This is contradictory by decades of work in rodents and in humans demonstrating that ATD can decrease 5-HT synthesis and release in rodents and lower 5-HIAA in human CSF (16–19). In one of our laboratories, the acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) protocol termed 'Moja-De' has been shown to decrease 5-HT release in rodents (20, 21) and to lower tryptophan (TRP) comparably in humans (22), suggesting that this mixture successfully decreases 5-HT synthesis as postulated. While some experi-ments (23) fail to detect changes in central 5-HT function after ATD, this is the exception rather than the rule in published studies. The author of this comment was also concerned that there would be regional variations in the inhibition of serotonin function. This is logical and consistent with published data on the effects of Moja-De ATD in mice. Mouse studies indicated that depletion of TRP was comparable across different brain areas but that the extent of decrease in 5-HIAA varied by region (20, 21). Regional release of 5-HT is controlled by a combination of cell firing including regionally selective input, the concentration of 5-HT1b receptors on terminals, the amount of tryptophan hydroxylase, and many other factors (24). However, there is no evidence that 5-HT release happens only in selective regions, but we agree the magnitude of ATD effects on release is likely to vary between regions despite comparable depletion of TRP. As regards potential interactions between 5-HT and hista-mine, we agree that measurement of histidine after depletion of TRP or any other formula lacking HIS is of interest. Young has questioned the results of ATD experiments in which HIS was not included, stating that 'histidine is an essential amino acid'. However, the essentiality of this amino acid is not clearly established (25). It has been reported that HIS was not necessary for the maintenance of nitrogen balances in short-term (26, 27). Kriengsunyos et al. (28) observed after a long-term histidine depletion administered to healthy adults that there were no effects on the protein metabolism (urinary nitrogen excretion and nitrogen balance). They suggested that the essentiality of this amino acid in healthy adults is still unclear as there are some components that may serve as sources of HIS, although the data they reported indicate that this amount may not be enough for maintain the HIS pool. The other concern expressed by Young was that effects of ATD could reflect disruption of a histamine–serotonin inter-action, as ATD would cause a dramatic decrease in histamine synthesis. This is possible, as it is well established that the neurotransmitter histamine is formed from HIS (29), and his-tamine turnover seems to occur faster than other biogenic amines, such as norepinephrine or 5-HT (30). Therefore, in the absence of HIS, competition from the amino acid mix-tures could indeed lower histamine production. However, nei-ther the control nor the ATD mixture in most studies contains histidine, and so histamine would not be differen-tially affected by the ATD mixture, but should be compara-bly depleted in both control and ATD mixtures. Nevertheless, it is possible that some interaction between his-tamine depletion and 5-HT depletion could have behavioral effects. Unfortunately, no behavioral effects of histamine depletion have been clearly established in the literature. A study by Young and his collaborators of HIS depletion effects on sensory and motor behavior in healthy adults (31) showed that HIS in plasma decreased 20% and the ratio HIS/ΣLNAA decreased 59%, but there were no behavioral effects of this depletion. Finally, we disagree with the statement that 'the relevance of such animal studies to the far more complex human brain is uncertain'. It is well known that validation of trans-lational methods has allowed modeling many aspects of the neuropsychopathology with the use of appropriate animal models, the majority of them throughout the use of rodents (32, 33). Translation of behavioral findings is challenging, due to limits in extrapolating simple behavioral tasks in rodents to sophisticated behaviors in humans. However, bio-chemical studies of ATD effects in humans and rodents have shown considerable concordance. For example, our studies in humans (5, 22) have been validated in mice (20, 21), consistent with the field as described above (16–19). As Dr. Young points out, detailed anatomic studies of 5-HT synthesis in the human brain are technologically demanding and rarely conducted. However, the concordance between the dependent measures that can be collected in humans (CSF 5-HIAA for example) and comparable measures in