By: Akshay Karthik
Neurotransmitters act as tiny messengers facilitating communication between different parts of your body, such as nerve cells, muscles, and glands. Your body's nervous system comprises a vast network of nerves that collaborate to regulate all bodily functions, including thoughts, feelings, muscle movements, and organ activities. By exchanging electrical signals between nerve cells and their target cells, these nerves ensure that every part of your body works in unison. This process is crucial for maintaining your overall health and well-being, allowing your body to perform all the functions required for optimal performance.
Your nervous system controls such functions as your:
Heartbeat and blood pressure.
Breathing.
Muscle movements.
Thoughts, memory, learning, and feelings.
Sleep, healing, and aging.
Stress response.
Hormone regulation.
Digestion, sense of hunger and thirst.
Senses (response to what you see, hear, feel, touch, and taste).
The way neurotransmitters work is you have billions of nerve cells in your body. Nerve cells are generally made up of three parts. First is the cell body, a vital component in producing neurotransmitters and maintaining the function of the nerve cell—an axon. The axon carries the electrical signals along the nerve cell to the axon terminal. The axon changes the electrical message to a chemical signal using neurotransmitters to communicate with the next group of nerve cells, muscle cells, or organs. Scientists know of at least 100 neurotransmitters and suspect many others have yet to be discovered. They can be grouped into types based on their chemical nature. Some of the better-known categories and neurotransmitter examples and their functions include amino acids neurotransmitters and abnormalities of monoamine neurotransmitters. Another is Serotonin. Serotonin is an inhibitory neurotransmitter. Serotonin helps regulate mood, sleep patterns, sexuality, anxiety, appetite, and pain. Another important neurotransmitter is Histamine. It regulates body functions, including wakefulness, feeding behavior, and motivation. Histamine plays a role in asthma, bronchospasm, mucosal edema, and multiple sclerosis.
Dopamine affects your body's reward system, including pleasure, heightened arousal, and learning. Dopamine also helps focus, concentration, memory, sleep, mood, and motivation. Diseases associated with dysfunctions of the dopamine system include Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, bipolar disease, restless legs syndrome, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Many highly addictive drugs (cocaine, methamphetamines, amphetamines) act directly on dopamine. Finally, Glycin is the most common inhibitory neurotransmitter in your spinal cord. Glycine is involved in controlling hearing processing, pain transmission, and metabolism. Neurotransmitters also seem to play a role in the development or causation of ADHD and its sub-coordinates. Although the exact cause of ADHD remains unknown, research suggests that fluctuating levels of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin in the brain can impact the severity of its symptoms. For instance, dopamine, which aids in concentration and rewards the brain for accomplishing tasks, can be reduced in individuals with ADHD, making it challenging to maintain focus or complete assignments. Hafeez, a mental health professional, explains that people with ADHD possess more dopamine transporter proteins, which eliminate dopamine from the brain too quickly, resulting in an excessive amount of dopamine being removed. However, it's crucial to note that none of these factors are solely responsible for causing ADHD, and there is still much to be learned about this condition.
Bibliography
Clinic, C. (2022). Neurotransmitters: What they are, functions & types. Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22513-neurotransmitters#:~:text=What%20are%20neurotransmitters%3F,muscle%20cell%20or%20a%20gland.
Sheffler, Z. (2022). NCBI Bookshelf. Physiology, Neurotransmitters. Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539894/
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