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nurotransmition, Pheramones - Coggle Diagram
nurotransmition
Serotonin
Mood. Serotonin plays a large role in regulating your mood, including your level of anxiety, happiness, and well-being. Mood altering drugs such as Ecstasy work by causing a massive rise in serotonin levels, but can also trigger feelings of depression as the drug begins to wear off and serotonin levels in the synapse drop.
Sexual function. Taking medications that increase the level of serotonin (such as antidepressants) causes a decrease in libido and sexual function. Conversely, low levels of serotonin in the intoxicated state are associated with high levels of libido and sexual aggression.
Depression. Some scientists believe that low levels of serotonin cause depression, although there is considerable controversy over this matter. Most medications prescribed today to treat depression work by reducing the re-uptake of serotonin, leading to higher levels of serotonin in the synapse. This is believed to have a positive effect on mood.
Dopamine
Movement and speech. Dopamine plays an important role in facilitating movement and speech. When dopamine-producing cells in a certain part of the brain begin to die off, people can have trouble initiating movements, leading to a condition known as Parkinson's disease. Medication for Parkinson's disease helps the brain to produce more dopamine.
Pleasure, reward and learning. When people expect or receive a reward - whether it is a cheeseburger, sex, or scoring the winning touchdown in a football game - levels of dopamine increase in the brain. This results in feelings of pleasure and reward, prompting us to alter our behavior to get more of that reward in the future. That's how animals learn to repeatedly press a certain lever to get food, and why its so hard to eat just one chocolate.
Addiction. Addictive drugs (such as cocaine, heroin, and nicotine) cause huge increases in dopamine levels, leading to the "high" that people feel. Dopamine causes the brain to associate drug use with feelings of reward. This motivates people to do the drug again and again - even if its harmful. The same is true of activities that have the potential to be addictive, such as gambling and watching pornography.
Rogers
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Procedure: Participants were 40 healthy male adults. Approximately half of the participants received a drink containing tryptophan, which increases levels of serotonin, while the other half received a drink not containing tryptophan. Afterwards, participants were given photos of couples, and asked to rate how "intimate" and "romantic" the couples appeared.
Results: Participants with lower serotonin levels (those that did not receive tryptophan) rated the couples as less intimate and romantic as those that received tryptophan
Conclusion: Serotonin appears to play a role in how we judge the emotional closeness of people's relationships. This has implications for the study of depression. Depressed people often report feelings of loneliness and social isolation. It could be that low levels of serotonin are a factor in how they perceive their relationships.
Well, the brain is made up of billions of neurons, and these neurons require chemicals called neurotransmitters to pass on signals from one neuron to the next
Pheramones
Research: Savic et al
Aim: Investigate whether human pheromones exist, and how they affect the brain
Procedure
The researchers exposed participants (24 men and women) to the smell of two chemicals, almost identical to the naturally produced sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen
As participants smelled the chemicals, their brains were scanned using a PET machine
Results
A region of the brain called the hypothalamus become activated in the men only when they smelled the female hormone, and become activated in the women only when they smelled the male hormone
The hypothalamus is a part of the brain which is linked to sexual behavior, and is not normally activated by ordinary smells
In a follow up study, Savic found that the brains of homosexual men responded just like the brains of women - the hypothalamus of gay men lit up when they smelled the male hormone, but did not respond to the female hormone
Conclusion
This study suggests that sex pheromones do exist in humans, and they may influence sexual behavior