What happens when transmitter activity is low?
In many mental health problems, it is known that there is reduced activity of transmitters e.g. reduced serotonin and noradrenaline in the brain can cause the symptoms of many conditions e.g. depression, general anxiety, social anxiety, obsessive thoughts, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic, pre-menstrual syndrome and agoraphobia. We know that serotonin and noradrenaline in the brain are involved with control of sleep/wake, emotions, mood, arousal, emotion, drive, temperature regulation, feeding etc. Thus, if a person has too little serotonin and noradrenaline in the part of the brain that controls mood, this will produce too little activity, and that part of the brain become slower and less effective. This will lower mood.
As we said, there may be many possible reasons for how this occurs e.g. genetics, how the brain develops, stress etc. There may in fact be many causes and in each person there may be a combination of these. Stress may cause changes in the body and then the brain, which can then result in reduced levels of serotonin and noradrenaline.
As we have seen above, the usual sequence is:
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1. A brain cell decides to send a message to another cell |
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2. The electrical impulse is sent from the brain cell down one of the nerve fibres |
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3. This message arrives and the transmitter is released. |
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4. The transmitters hit the receptor on the other side. However, in some people there is a lack of transmitter and/or impulse. |
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5. We’re not entirely sure what happens but the message that is passed is definitely less effective. |
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6. The transmitter is either broken or … |
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… taken back up again and recycled, although there appears to be less transmitter to be recycled. |
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7. The nerve fibre and synapse is then ready for next message |
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