Know Your Neurotransmitters

Know your Neurotransmitters

You’ve probably heard about oxytocin in relation to hugging, dopamine in terms of addiction and serotonin in relation to depression. Neurotransmitters are crucial for all sorts of operations in your brain, including mood, appetite and movement. When dysregulated they can lead to undesirable outcomes, including mood disorders like depression and bipolar disorder, addiction and substance use disorders, and psychosis.

You may hear that ‘people with depression have a serotonin shortage’ or ‘addiction is caused by dopamine dysregulation’, and whilst that has some basis in science, the workings of these chemical messengers are somewhat mysterious and definitely more complex than that. Disorders are caused by a number of interactions and neurotransmitters, but for the sake of understanding, let’s keep it simple! In this article we’ll focus on those that are most commonly associated with mood and mental health: serotonin, dopamine, GABA, norepinephrine, oxytocin, and endorphins.

What are neurotransmitters?

Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that communicate between the neurons in your brain. Whenever you think, move, learn, feel, perceive or do pretty much anything at all (even when you think you’re doing nothing), electrochemical impulses are rushing along pathways of neurons to make things happen. There are approximately 86 billion neurons in the brain and they do not actually touch each other! Instead they have small synapses where they ‘connect’, gaps of about 40 nanometres between them. For context, there are one million nanometres in a millimetre! The presynaptic (sending) neuron releases these neurotransmitters into the gap, which are picked up by the postsynaptic (receiving) neuron, triggering a response. All this happens a LOT faster than you can say ‘Give me the happy ones please brain!’

Serotonin: The Moody One

We mostly hear about serotonin with regard to mood, particularly that low levels cause depression. People who take antidepressant drugs, are likely to be taking SSRIs — Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors — which work by preventing presynaptic neurons from taking back the serotonin they release into the synapse so there is more available for the brain to use. As well as mood, serotonin is involved in appetite, sleep, memory, impulse inhibition and sexual desire. If you’re low on it, you might experience depression, anxiety, aggression, irritability, impulsivity, insomnia or poor appetite.

How to get enough

The essential ingredient for serotonin is tryptophan, found in salmon, eggs, spinach and seeds, or available as a supplement. Other players in the synthesis and regulation processes include magnesium, zinc, vitamins D, B6, B12 and L-methionine, and deficiencies in any of these could affect your serotonin availability.

How to ‘hack’ it for happiness

Giving, receiving or even witnessing an act of kindness boosts your serotonin, as does sunlight, exercise, and getting a massage.

Dopamine: The Hedonistic One

Dopamine is most commonly discussed for its role in pleasure, reward and motivation. The neurons in your brain that go crazy when you eat cake, have sex, or take drugs are full of dopamine receptors. It is involved in motivation, satisfaction and reward-driven behaviour, as well as movement, sleep, mood and learning. Too much dopamine is linked to aggression, poor impulse control, binge eating, addiction, and has been linked to psychosis and hallucinations in schizophrenia. Low dopamine is seen in movement disorders like Parkinson’s Disease, and may also result in low motivation, energy and sex drive, brain fog, and mood swings.

How to get enough

Dopamine is made from Tyrosine, which your body creates from phenylalanine, which can be found in meat, fish, eggs, tofu, almonds, avocadoes, milk, nuts and seeds. Tyrosine is also available as a supplement. Other players in the dopamine game that you’ll want to get enough of include copper, iron, and vitamins B3, B6, B9, and C. When you eat food that is high in sugar you’ll get a surge of dopamine, however this can lead to the same kind of desensitisation and tolerance as a drug addiction, with your brain needing more and more to get the same dopaminalicious reward. Poor sleep and chronic stress will also deplete your dopamine.

How to ‘hack’ it for productivity

Dopamine’s main purpose is actually motivation rather than pleasure, making sure you enjoy activities like eating and reproducing so you continue to do them. Think about how enjoyable it is planning a holiday, or clothes shopping for a hot date you’re excited about. Set goals, and use your pleasurable dopamine-surge activities as rewards instead of distractions.

GABA: The Chill One

Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) is that neurotransmitter that walks into the chaos and reminds everyone to relax. It is inhibitory, produces a calming effect, reducing anxiety, stress and fear, and helping you sleep. Benzodiazepines like Valium work by enhancing the effect of GABA. If you don’t have enough you may suffer from panic, anxiety and even seizures. GABA is produced naturally in the brain, and low levels can be caused by an inadequate diet, genetics and prolonged stress.

How to get enough

Vitamin B6 is essential for GABA production. You can buy GABA as a food supplement, but scientists aren’t convinced it actually does anything.

How to ‘hack’ it for relaxation

It probably won’t surprise you that yoga, meditation and deep breathing improve your GABA functions. You’ll get the best results if you incorporate them as a regular practice, rather than just when you need them.

Norepinephrine: The Alert One (also known as noradrenaline)

Multitasking norepinephrine functions as a neurotransmitter and a hormone, released into the blood in response to stress. It is involved in attention and alarm response, including the body’s fight or flight response, to help mobilise you for action in the face of danger. It is also implicated in emotions, sleeping, dreaming and is important for memory and learning. Low levels are associated with lethargy, lack of focus and attention, and depression. Overactivity can amplify our normal stress reactions and cause symptoms like anxiety, insomnia, irritability and mood swings.

How to get enough (and regulate it)

Norepinephrine is made from dopamine! It starts with phenylalanine, and goes one step further than dopamine, requiring all the ingredients dopamine requires, and then oxygen and vitamin C to undertake that next transformation. Chronic stress causes prolonged activation of the norepinephrine system, which uses up all your resources, stealing energy from your healing and maintenance systems to prepare for this apparent ongoing threat. Finding ways to reduce stress (see GABA: The Chill One) will regulate your norepinephrine.

How to ‘hack’ it for attention and memory

Coffee’ll do it!

Oxytocin: The Loving One

Oxytocin is both a hormone and a neuropeptide. A neuropeptide is like a large-sized neurotransmitter, and is usually associated with slow, prolonged effects instead of quick ones. Oxytocin is known as ‘the love hormone’ and induces feelings of affection and trust, while inhibiting the brain’s fear response. There you go… this is probably the scientific basis for that hippy notion of fear being the opposite of love! It plays a crucial role in childbirth, breastfeeding, and parental bonding.

How to get enough of it

You can purchase oxytocin as a nasal spray, and it has been shown to promote trust, kindness, emotion recognition and sensitivity. But beware the ‘dark side’ of the cuddle chemical… a 2009 study has shown it can also increase aggression, envy, jealousy and gloating!

How to hack it for those loving feelings

Some studies have shown you can increase oxytocin by meditating, patting your dog or hugging.

Endorphins: The Feelgood One

Most famous for their part in the ‘runner’s high’, endorphins are another neuropeptide. When you feel amazing after a good workout, that’s your endorphins in action. They act as a natural pain reliever, working on the same neuroreceptors as opiates like morphine. They are released as a response to stress or pain, and also during eating, exercising and sex. They improve your mood, lower your stress and boost your self-esteem.

How to get enough of them

Endorphins are produced naturally in the body. We don’t know a lot about endorphin deficiency, but some studies have shown they can become depleted through habitual alcohol use or after traumatic experiences.

How to ‘hack’ them for good feels

You can give yourself a boost of endorphins by eating dark chocolate or something spicy, having a glass of wine, creating music, dancing, doing a workout, meditating, getting a massage, having a sauna or volunteering. Even just having a good laugh will get them working, so watching a good comedy might give you what you need.

Just to reiterate, this is a simplistic explanation and neurotransmitters work in complex ways with each other, with hormones, and with various parts of the body and brain to create different moods and psychological states. We still have a lot to learn about the true nature of these interactions — the brain is a fun and complicated thing to study! But there’s nothing to lose in friending up with your neurotransmitters and giving them the nutrition and stimulus to encourage them. They might even reward you with those oh-so-good brain feels we like so much.

By Larissa Wright (Medium). Gif by AnatomyLearn. Illustration by Compound Interest.

Carbon and Our Changing Climate

Carbon is the backbone of life on Earth. We are made of carbon, we eat carbon and our civilizations are built on carbon. We need carbon, but that need is also entwined with one of the most serious problems facing us today: global climate change.

Forged in the heart of aging stars, carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the Universe. Most of Earth’s carbon – about 65,500 billion metric tons – is stored in rocks. The rest is in the ocean, atmosphere, plants, soil and fossil fuels.

Over the long term, the carbon cycle seems to maintain a balance that prevents all of Earth’s carbon from entering the atmosphere, or from being stored entirely in rocks. This balance helps keep Earth’s temperature relatively stable, like a thermostat.

Today, changes in the carbon cycle are happening because of people. We disrupt the cycle by burning fossil fuels and clearing land. Our Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite is providing our first detailed, global measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere at the Earth’s surface. OCO-2 recently released its first full year of data, critical to analyzing the annual CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.

The above animation shows carbon dioxide released from two different sources: fires and massive urban centers known as megacities. The animation covers a five day period in June 2006. The model is based on real emission data and is then set to run so that scientists can observe how greenhouse gas behaves once it has been emitted.

All of this extra carbon needs to go somewhere. So far, land plants and the ocean have taken up about 55 percent of the extra carbon people have put into the atmosphere while about 45 percent has stayed in the atmosphere. The below animation shows the average 12-month cycle of all plant life on Earth (on land and in the ocean). Eventually, the land and oceans will take up most of the extra carbon dioxide, but as much as 20 percent may remain in the atmosphere for many thousands of years.

Excess carbon in the atmosphere warms the planet and helps plants on land grow more. Excess carbon in the ocean makes the water more acidic, putting marine life in danger. Forest and other land ecosystems are also changing in response to a warmer world. Some ecosystems – such as thawing permafrost in the Arctic and fire-prone forests – could begin emitting more carbon than they currently absorb.

To learn more about NASA’s efforts to better understand the carbon and climate challenge, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/carbonclimate/.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

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ritasakano

9 years ago

The maiko Ichimari with the sakkou hairstyle and a focus on her own designed kanzashi made with turtle for hapiness and a crane and some pines for longevity! (Source1, Source2)

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ritasakano

7 years ago

13 Reasons to Have an Out-of-This-World Friday (the 13th)

1. Not all of humanity is bound to the ground

Since 2000, the International Space Station has been continuously occupied by humans. There, crew members live and work while conducting important research that benefits life on Earth and will even help us eventually travel to deep space destinations, like Mars.

2. We’re working to develop quieter supersonic aircraft that would allow you to travel from New York to Los Angeles in 2 hours

We are working hard to make flight greener, safer and quieter – all while developing aircraft that travel faster, and building an aviation system that operates more efficiently. Seventy years after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 aircraft, we’re continuing that supersonic X-plane legacy by working to create a quieter supersonic jet with an aim toward passenger flight.

3. The spacecraft, rockets and systems developed to send astronauts to low-Earth orbit as part of our Commercial Crew Program is also helping us get to Mars

Changes to the human body during long-duration spaceflight are significant challenges to solve ahead of a mission to Mars and back. The space station allows us to perform long duration missions without leaving Earth’s orbit.

Although they are orbiting Earth, space station astronauts spend months at a time in near-zero gravity, which allows scientists to study several physiological changes and test potential solutions. The more time they spend in space, the more helpful the station crew members can be to those on Earth assembling the plans to go to Mars.

4. We’re launching a spacecraft in 2018 that will go “touch the Sun”

In the summer of 2018, we’re launching Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft that will get closer to the Sun than any other in human history. Parker Solar Probe will fly directly through the Sun’s atmosphere, called the corona. Getting better measurements of this region is key to understanding our Sun.

For instance, the Sun releases a constant outflow of solar material, called the solar wind. We think the corona is where this solar wind is accelerated out into the solar system, and Parker Solar Probe’s measurements should help us pinpoint how that happens.

5. You can digitally fly along with spacecraft…that are actually in space…in real-time!

NASA’s Eyes are immersive, 3D simulations of real events, spacecraft locations and trajectories. Through this interactive app, you can experience Earth and our solar system, the universe and the spacecraft exploring them. Want to watch as our Juno spacecraft makes its next orbit around Juno? You can! Or relive all of the Voyager mission highlights in real-time? You can do that too! Download the free app HERE to start exploring.

6. When you feel far away from home, you can think of the New Horizons spacecraft as it heads toward the Kuiper Belt, and the Voyager spacecraft are beyond the influence of our sun…billions of miles away

Our New Horizons spacecraft completed its Pluto flyby in July 2015 and has continued on its way toward the Kuiper Belt. The spacecraft continues to send back important data as it travels toward deeper space at more than 32,000 miles per hour, and is ~3.2 billion miles from Earth.

In addition to New Horizons, our twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing on their more-than-37-year journey since their 1977 launches, they are each much farther away from Earth and the sun than Pluto. In August 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic entry into interstellar space, the region between the stars, filled with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions of years ago.

7. There are humans brave enough to not only travel in space, but venture outside space station to perform important repairs and updates during spacewalks

Just this month (October 2017) we’ve already had two spacewalks on the International Space Station…with another scheduled on Oct. 20.

Spacewalks are important events where crew members repair, maintain and upgrade parts of the International Space Station. These activities can also be referred to as EVAs – Extravehicular Activities. Not only do spacewalks require an enormous amount of work to prepare for, but they are physically demanding on the astronauts. They are working in the vacuum of space in only their spacewalking suit.

8. Smart people are up all night working in control rooms all over NASA to ensure that data keeps flowing from our satellites and spacecraft

Our satellites and spacecraft help scientists study Earth and space. Missions looking toward Earth provide information about clouds, oceans, land and ice. They also measure gases in the atmosphere, such as ozone and carbon dioxide and the amount of energy that Earth absorbs and emits. And satellites monitor wildfires, volcanoes and their smoke.

9. A lot of NASA-developed tech has been transferred for use to the public

Our Technology Transfer Program highlights technologies that were originally designed for our mission needs, but have since been introduced to the public market. HERE are a few spinoff technologies that you might not know about.

10. We have a spacecraft currently traveling to an asteroid to collect a sample and bring it back to Earth

OSIRIS-REx is our first-ever mission that will travel to an asteroid and bring a sample of it back to Earth. Currently, the spacecraft is on its way to asteroid Bennu where it will survey and map the object before it “high-fives” the asteroid with its robotic arm to collect a sample, which it will send to Earth.

If everything goes according to plan, on Sept. 24, 2023, the capsule containing the asteroid sample will make a soft landing in the Utah desert.

11. There are Earth-sized planets outside our solar system that may be habitable

To date, we have confirmed 3,000+ exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system that orbit a Sun-like star. Of these 3,000, some are in the habitable zone – where the temperature is just right for liquid water to exist on the surface.

Recently, our Spitzer Space Telescope revealed the first known system of SEVEN Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these plants are firmly in the habitable zone, and could have liquid water on the surface, which is key to life as we know it.

12. Earth looks like art from space

In 1960, the United States put its first Earth-observing environmental satellite into orbit around the planet. Over the decades, these satellites have provided invaluable information, and the vantage point of space has provided new perspectives on Earth.

The beauty of Earth is clear, and the artistry ranges from the surreal to the sublime.

13. We’re building a telescope that will be able to see the first stars ever formed in the universe

Wouldn’t it be neat to see a period of the universe’s history that we’ve never seen before? That’s exactly what the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to do…plus more!

Specifically, Webb will see the first objects that formed as the universe cooled down after the Big Bang. We don’t know exactly when the universe made the first stars and galaxies – or how for that matter. That is what we are building Webb to help answer.