10 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2023
    1. f learning makes new connections, then remembering that learning will strengthen those connections. As our brains create these structural changes, our thoughts produce neurotransmitters, a mixture of neurochemicals that create emotions.
  2. Aug 2022
  3. Jul 2022
    1. “Sharing a few minutes with a pet will minimize anxiety and [lower] blood pressure and raise serotonin and dopamine rates, two neurochemicals that play a major ...

    1. Apr 29, 2020 — Why Having a Pet Can Boost Your Mood and Keep Your Brain Healthy ... hormone cortisol and boost release of the neurotransmitter serotonin, ...

    1. Playing with a dog or cat can elevate levels of serotonin and dopamine, which calm and relax. Pet owners have lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels (indicators of heart disease) than those without pets.

  4. Jan 2022
    1. triad

      triad of serotonin syndrome: altered mental status, neuromuscular abnormalities, autonomic hyperactivity

  5. Nov 2020
    1. Maze told me that his team’s latest research (not yet published) has also found this type of epigenetic marking in the brain tissues of people with major depressive disorder. Perhaps this connection even explains why antidepressant drugs take so long to be effective: If the drugs work by activating this epigenetic process, rather than just supplying the brain’s missing serotonin, it can take days or even weeks before these genetic changes become apparent.

      Antidepressants might take so long to start working because they have to induce epigenetic changes to work.

    2. serotonin has another function: It can act as one of those molecular Post-it notes. Specifically, it can bind to a type of histone known as H3, which controls the genes responsible for transforming human stem cells (the forerunner of all kinds of cells) into serotonin neurons. When serotonin binds to the histone, the DNA unwinds, turning on the genes that dictate the development of a stem cell into a serotonin neuron, while turning off other genes by keeping their DNA tightly wound. (So stem cells that never see serotonin turn into other types of cells, since the genetic program to transform them into neurons is not activated.)

      Serotonin can bind to H3 Histone and cause stem cells to become serotonin neurons.

      This research led the same team to wonder if Dopamine might act in a similar way.

      The serotonin paper is here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30867594/

  6. Jul 2017
    1. smooching on the first date could be improving the mental health of Aussie singles

      kissing improving mental health or simply producing more serotonin and oxytocin, both which have been linked to feelings of euphoria