Serotonin Signalling
How strongly serotonin is signalling. The system most often named when 19-nor androgens are linked to impulse control, irritability and sleep. Almost all of the evidence is rodent work; nothing has been measured at these receptors in a human on these compounds.
Relationships
6 connectionsSerotonin Signalling elevates
Serotonin
Monoamine made from tryptophan. Mostly gut-resident, and the precursor of melatonin.
Serotonin 5-HT2A Receptor
A serotonin receptor involved in mood, impulse control and aggression. Androgen exposure shifts serotonergic signalling in animal work, which is the mechanistic case behind steroid irritability.
Serotonin Signalling reduces risk of
Aggression
Hostility and short fuse. Reported consistently by users and in case series, and produced in blinded trials mainly at supraphysiological doses and mainly in a minority of people.
Irritability
A lower threshold for annoyance, distinct from outright aggression and far more commonly reported.
Serotonin Signalling stimulates
Executive Function
Planning, switching between tasks, and holding back a response you are about to make. The last of those is the one that matters here: reported aggression on these compounds is often better described as a failure of the brake than as an increase in anger.
Sleep Quality
How restorative sleep is, as opposed to how much of it there is. Deep and REM sleep are where growth hormone is released and where memory is consolidated, so this is the measure that connects a sleep effect to a memory effect. A person can sleep eight hours and get almost none of this.