Modern life is stressful, and as Svante Winberg explains, living under stress for a long time affects more than just your mood. For fish living in the cramped conditions of an aquaculture unit there is no escape from the stress. Winberg knew that if he could begin to untangle the stressed-out fishes' physiology, he might be able to help them overcome some of the nastier side effects of stress. Taking a dietary approach to stress relief, Winberg and his team began testing how fish responded to stress after they had been fed a key neurological precursor, tryptophan. To their surprise, they found that a tryptophan supplement changes they way that fish control their hormonal stress response, possibly protecting them from the negative effects of stress(p. 3679).
One of the earliest physiological responses to physical stress is when the neurotransmitter, serotonin, is released deep in the brain, triggering a...
