Metabolite Encyclopedia › Cholinergic system
Acetylcholine is the chemical your nerves use to move your muscles, and in the brain it is the signal that makes a sleeping brain look awake. During REM sleep it climbs back to waking levels while almost everything else stays switched off.
- Also calledACh
- Made inNerve endings, all over the body
- Built fromCholine and acetyl-CoA
- Signals viaNicotinic and muscarinic receptors
Three things worth knowing
It was the first neurotransmitter anyone found. Otto Loewi identified it in 1921 using two frog hearts and a saline bath, proving that nerves talk to tissue with chemicals rather than electricity alone. By his own account the design of the experiment came to him in the middle of the night and he got up to write it down. He shared the Nobel Prize for it in 1936.
A dreaming brain and an awake brain look alike because of this one molecule. During REM sleep, acetylcholine release returns to waking levels or higher, while noradrenaline and serotonin go quiet. That specific combination, one system on and the others off, is the chemical signature of REM and the reason the EEG of a dreaming person resembles the EEG of an alert one.
It is destroyed faster than almost any other signal in the body. An enzyme called acetylcholinesterase splits acetylcholine apart within milliseconds of release. The message has to be erased that quickly, otherwise a single nerve impulse would never stop arriving.
What actually changes between sleep stages
Where you meet it in food
- Eggs
- Soybeans
- Liver
- Salmon
- Chicken
- Broccoli
You do not eat acetylcholine. You eat choline, which is one of the two pieces your nerve endings put together. The other piece comes from ordinary metabolism.
Questions people actually ask
What does acetylcholine actually do?
Two main jobs. At the junction between nerve and muscle it triggers contraction, which is every voluntary movement you make. In the brain it shapes attention, arousal and the REM state.
Why does it matter for REM sleep?
REM is defined partly by acetylcholine being high while noradrenaline and serotonin are low. Direct recordings in animals and drug studies in humans both point the same way.
Can you increase it by eating more choline?
Not usefully. Choline is required to make acetylcholine, so a genuine shortage matters, but above that the body regulates synthesis and release rather than simply making more when more arrives.
Is it found in mushrooms?
It appears in AHARA's metabolomic map of its Reishi and Lion's Mane elixirs, which is how it ended up in this encyclopedia.
Acetylcholine is one of more than 2,000 metabolites AHARA mapped across its Reishi and Lion's Mane elixirs. You can browse the rest of what is in the bottle.
Open the Metabolite EncyclopediaReferences
Platt B, Riedel G. The cholinergic system, EEG and sleep. Behav Brain Res. 2011;221(2):499-504. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2011.01.017
Jones BE. From waking to sleeping: neuronal and chemical substrates. Trends Pharmacol Sci. 2005;26(11):578-586. doi:10.1016/j.tips.2005.09.009
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