Fantastic Drug & Neurotransmitters Chart

I found this fantastic chart from MIT that has an overview of the effects of various drugs on the body. The top portion is licit and illicit drugs.  The portion I took a screenshot from is here.  Simply wonderful overview of the neurotransmitters.  The entire chart is available at this link:
http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/SP/SP.236/S09/lecturenotes/drugchart.htm

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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The Science of Kissing

You and your kids will love this video--it puts a common activity and scientifically explains WHY kissing is so enjoyable.  It goes beyond the average answer.
Good stuff.



Here is a link to a book on this topic for those who want to explore more.

The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us

 posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Sugar and the Brain

SUGAR!!!!!

A colleague was looking for examples and descriptions for the economic idea of diminishing marginal utility.   He ran across this video on sugar and the brain.  It deals with taste buds, brain parts, dopamine and all sorts of brain and physiology ideas.  It's only 5 minutes and has some fun graphics to keep the kids interested. Not all the various terms we use are in here, but may are referenced. Check it out.


posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Falling in and Out of Love

One of the daily emails I receive is called Delancey Place.com.   Each day, an excerpt from a book or magazine is highlighted--the topics vary widely.  This week, they are doing a series on love.  Every semester, my students ask me about falling in and out of love.  I know have my answer thanks to this find from  Delancey Place.  Here is the excerpt:

12/28/09 to 1/1/10: The Delanceyplace.com Week of Love!!!

In today's encore excerpt - the neural and chemical basis of love. Why doesn't passionate love last? - because we develop a chemical tolerance:

"Anthropologist Helen Fisher ... has devoted much of her career to studying the biochemical pathways of love in all its manifestations: lust, romance, attachment, the way they wax and wane ... [In her studies] when each subject looked at his or her loved one, the parts of the brain linked to reward and pleasure - the ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus - lit up. ... Love lights up the caudate nucleus because it is home to a dense spread of receptors for a neurotransmitter called dopamine ... which creates intense energy, exhilaration, focused attention ... [thus] love makes you bold, makes you bright, makes you run real risks, which you sometimes survive, and sometimes you don't. ...

"Researchers have long hypothesized that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have a serotonin 'imbalance.' Drugs like Prozac seem to alleviate OCD by increasing the amount of this neurotransmitter available at the juncture between neurons. [Researchers] compared the lover's serotonin levels with those from the OCD group and another group who were free from both passion and mental illness. Levels of serotonin in both the obsessives' blood and the lovers' blood were 40 percent lower than those in normal subjects. ... Translation: Love and mental illness may be difficult to tell apart. ...

"Why doesn't passionate love last? ... Biologically speaking, the reasons romantic love fades may be found in the way our brains respond to the surge and pulse of dopamine ... cocaine users describe the phenomenon of tolerance: the brain adapts to the excessive input of the drug ... From a physiological point of view, [couples move] from the dopamine-drenched state of romantic love to the relative quiet of the oxytocin-induced attachment. Oxytocin is a hormone that promotes a feeling of connection, bonding."

Lauren Slater, "Love: The Chemical Reaction," National Geographic, February 2006, pp. 35-45

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