Short- and long-term lithium administration: effects on the brain's serotonergic biosynthetic systems.

Short-term treatment with lithium chloride stimulates the uptake of tryptophan and its conversion to serotonin by striate synaptosomes. Preincubation of striate synaptosomes with L-tryptophan and in vivo administration of L-tryptophan appear to act in a similar manner. Midbrain tryptophan hydroxylase activity is reduced in temporal continuity with the lithium-induced activation of tryptophan uptake and conversion. By 10 days, conversion of tryptophan to serotonin in nerve endings becomes a joint function of the maintained increased uptake of tryptophan and a decreased level of tryptophan hydroxylase activity in nerve endings. The occurrence of this delayed alteration corresponds in time to the previously described axoplasmic flow rate for tryptophan hydroxylase.