[Arkallic]

So first off I'm new here! My name's Jordan. I'm looking for a forum to help me in my quest to get to know as much chemistry as I can and to get help for projects I wish to do from people who know what they are talking about. So anyway here's my question:

So recently I have successfully synthesized Serotonin! With this success I thought it might be fun to make some other neurotransmitters. Right now Dopamine is my next product, which shouldn't be to hard to do. I think I got the idea on how to do that. Just a Decarboxylation of L-DOPA and that should be very easy. But then I realized that with the Dopamine I could also use it to make Norepinephrine. I'm still a very nooby chemist and thought I'd ask for help on this wonderful forum. So my question is what's the best way to add an OH to the Dopamine to make Norepinephrine. If I had to guess it shouldn't be that hard. But I honestly have no idea. If anyone can give some details on how I can do this or point me to something that would help I'd be very grateful!

Hope you're all having a wonderful week

[discodermolide]

Ah, home made drugs, wonderful things.
But you may not get too much assistance here as we do not discuss this sort of topic, see the forum rules.

[Enthalpy]

Just for my information: do neurotransmitters pass the brain barrier? I believe to have read somewhere (did I?) that only some precursors can reach the brain hence are possible drugs.

Though, they may reach other organs, especially digestive ones, where they have other functions.

[Arkallic]

I know Serotonin doesn't cross the Blood Brain Barrier. If I had to guess others don't as well or they would be giving people those neurotransmitters and not stuff like SSRis and SSNRIs

and also sorry, I never really thought of Norepinephrine as a drug. Always just thought of it as a neurotransmitter plan and simple. So sorry about that.

[discodermolide]

Just for my information: do neurotransmitters pass the brain barrier? I believe to have read somewhere (did I?) that only some precursors can reach the brain hence are possible drugs.

Though, they may reach other organs, especially digestive ones, where they have other functions.

Some of them are actively transported across the BBB. But they are produced in the brain. It is usually a very hard job to get a compound across the BBB. Note that the actual mechanism causing depression and anxiety and the like are poorly understood. For example why is Li⁺ an anti-depressant? This most certainly does not cross the BBB.
So a lot is still a black box.

[Enthalpy]

Thanks for both kind answers!

[rwiew]

For example why is Li⁺ an anti-depressant? This most certainly does not cross the BBB.

You've chosen a bad example for your 'we know nothing about psychatric disorders' illustration actually. Lithium does cross the blood-brain barrier, albeit slowly - I think it goes via active transport. This is why it tends to have quite a big lag between administration and onset of therapeutic action. It wouldn't work psychologically if it didn't cross the barrier, full stop. But I agree, a lot still remains to be studies in neuroscience, especially for SSRIs.

[discodermolide]

Actually Li⁺ could well be acting as a messenger causing the release of other transmitters that then act as anti-depresants.
It's a while since I was in the NS area of research but I was not aware of a Li⁺ transporter partly because moving out of the field it's hard to keep up with things. Do you have a reference link I could look at.
Thanks

[zsinger]

EXACTLY WHAT DISCO SAID.

[Babcock_Hall]

Garrett and Grisham (Biochemistry, 4th ed., p. 1031) note that lithium ion is an uncompetitive inhibitor of myo-inositol monophosphatase, which I surmise is part of a breakdown pathway for phosphatidylinositol breakdown.  Whether this is part of its effects as an antidepressant was unknown at the time of writing of this textbook.