The Influence of Stress on Dopamine Levels :: Biology Essays Research Papers

The Influence of Stress on Dopamine LevelsIn the quest to survive, every living organism is equipped with the armor to admit the impacts of stress. The African savanna leaves the zebra in an anxiety-ridden position of vulnerability to predators. Stress whitethorn can be as basic as the lack of food, habitat, or reproductive success. Humans are especially aware of the impacts of stress collect to the nature of todays contemporary lifestyle. Too many occasional demands can give a some trunk anything from insomnia to indigestion to depression. Every person is equipped to naturally deal with large amounts of stress, only when when these amounts exceed what the body can handle, discomfort is considerable.Besides the qualitative approach to coping with stress, what visible chemical mechanisms are responsible for dealing with anxiety? The nervous musical arrangement is almost solely credited with this task. The complex interaction system of rules between billions of individualist ic neurons facilitates large number of behaviors that result due to inputs originating inside and outside the organism. Spaces between neighboring neurons are called synapses, and one way in which they communicate is by sending chemical signals called neurotransmitters across the presynaptic membrane to the postsynaptic membrane. Years of nervous system research have determined that stress activates the neurotransmitter, dopamine.The functions of dopamine are numerous, but in general it inhibits transmission of nerve impulses. This transmitter is found end-to-end the body, though mainly housed in the brains interior common basil ganglia, in the frontal lobe of the information-processing center of the brain, or in the limbic system (1).Many chronic diseases result from the overproduction or underproduction of dopamine. The dopamines inability to move into the frontal lobe of the brain results in the inability to subdue fine motor movement and is familiarly called Parkinson Disease (1) . If the flow of dopamine throughout the nervous system is not allowed to circulate as usual, then schizophrenic psychosis follows (1).Now that the extreme abnormalities of dopamine have been discussed, lets musical note at how dopamine affects the average person who is subjected to a stressful environment. star study maintains that the chewing behavior of mice is a response to stress, and therefore it serves as a coping device. The body responds to stress by the activation of the rational dopaminergic (DA) system. The study shows that when given the option of chewing, the activation of mouse DA system is drawn out (2) In other words, when allowed to chew, a mouses body will have prolonged the presence of stress-managers this coping mechanism reduces the impact of the stress.