neurotransmitters

NEUROTRANSMITTERS IN THE BRAIN

A very important role in the nervous system is played by a set of chemicals called the neurotransmitters. As it is evident from the name neurotransmitters these fluids, or these chemicals are the means through which neurons communicate with each other.

About neurons what you have to understand is that neurons actually do not make a direct contact with each other. They are lying in this chemical mass made up of these neurotransmitters or chemicals. Within the neuron an electrical impulse is generated this electrical impulse crosses the exon into this fluid made up of neurotransmitters and then these neurotransmitters communicate the impulse onto the dendrites of the other neuron.

Important role of neurotransmitters:

The nature of these neurotransmitters earlier was not considered very significant, but recent research has shown that these neurotransmitters play a very, very important role in the nervous system itself.

Examples

Schizophrenia:

We're all familiar with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is considered a disorder in which the personality breaks down, the person starts to hallucinate, the person starts to hear voices, the person starts to see things or people that are not even there, how does that happen. We really don't know the brain is so complex, but we do know that the people in whom schizophrenia takes hold seem to have a large amount of dopamine than normal in their brains. There was a lot of research that shows that dopamine is somehow linked with schizophrenia, but schizophrenia is a very drastic example.

Depression:

What about the common cold of mental disorders depression. Depression we call the common cold of mental disorders because it's one of the most common mental disorders present. How do we explain depression? There are many ways of understanding depression. But we do find that a neurotransmitter or a chemical called serotonin is linked with depression. Absence of serotonin has been connected with depression. As we've discussed before psychology is not limited to one single view of how things happen.

Yes, neurotransmitters or these chemicals play a very important role, but is it the only role is it a cause-and-effect relationship that has not been decided. There is evidence that emotional difficulties can be caused by the circumstances or our reactions to the circumstances even if there is no neurochemical imbalance. In any case, there is additionally proof that due to these issues or these difficulties we may experience neurochemical imbalance. So are we putting a cart before the horse. Is it that when we get depressed the amount of serotonin decreases instead of arguing that when there is a decrease in serotonin depression happens as a result. 

So, do you see the problem here, is depression causing the chemical imbalance or is the chemical imbalance causing the depression? That problem has not been resolved. Similarly for schizophrenia is it schizophrenia that's causing the excess dopamine or is it the excess dopamine that's causing schizophrenia? 

Treatment:

And what about treatment earlier it used to be said that it's only psychiatric intervention or taking medicines that tinker with the amount of serotonin or dopamine that would help mental patients. But what we find now is that even psychotherapy tends to affect this chemical imbalance and helps restore the balance of neurotransmitters or chemicals in the brain so just by talking, we can influence what happens in the neurotransmitters. So, we would like to submit that yes, these neurotransmitters are extremely important and there may be occasions when the imbalance might cause emotional disturbances or difficulties, but firmly of the view that situation is never that simple.

As we discussed on neurons there are billions and billions of neurons interacting to generate human experience and understanding and information processing and yes neurotransmitters also have a limited role to play but can we attribute their mental disorders to just fluctuations in a single or one or two neurotransmitters I think there isn't sufficient evidence for that. There are other neurotransmitters, we have glutamate, we have aspartate, we have nitric oxide, we have glycine, GABA, serotonin, dopamine like we mentioned earlier we have acetylcholine and norepinephrine, as you can see these different kinds of neurotransmitters have a role to play to what extent this role extends itself to the running of our human biological system remains to be seen.