Many benefits of the love hormone
Oxytocin, an anti-stress, or love hormone, has many benefits. Its released from the hypothalamus in the brain which acts to counteract the effects of stress. Oxytocin is a hormone that acts as a neurotransmitter. It also plays an important role in reproduction. In females, the hormone triggers labor and the release of breast milk. In males, oxytocin helps move sperm.
Oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin are often referred to as our happy hormones. You know the feeling when youre attracted to another person, your brain releases dopamine. Your serotonin levels increase, and oxytocin is produced. This causes you to feel a surge of positive emotion.
For a long time, the actions of the love hormone were believed to occur due to its release into the blood with only minor effects on the nerves within the brain that regulate gastrointestinal functions. Penn State University used new ways to manipulate the neurons and nerves (neuro-circuits) that oxytocin released from the hypothalamus acts upon. It also measured the effects on the response of gastric emptying to stress. They reported that, contrary to previous assumptions, these oxytocin circuits play a major role in the response of the stomach to stress. Indeed, activation of these oxytocin circuits reversed the delay in gastric emptying that occurs normally in response to stress. It does so by increasing muscle contractions (motility) of the stomach, while inhibition of these neuro-circuits prevented adaptation to stress.
The study made use of cutting-edge tools to allow selective manipulation of circuits that receive hypothalamic oxytocin inputs together with simultaneous measurements of gastric emptying and motility in response to stress. Acute stress, appropriate adaptation to stress, and inappropriate adaptation to stress. The authors infected neurons (in rats) controlling the oxytocin nerves and neuro-circuits with novel viruses that allowed them to be activated or inhibited and measured muscle activity in the stomach, as well as gastric emptying (the time for food to leave the stomach).
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New Study Links The Love Hormone To Our Digestion - Longevity LIVE - Longevity LIVE
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