How do chemicals in the brain result in a certain feeling? (Split from "Thalamus")

[SamBridge]

Ok so the chemical is released into the blood, but how does the chemical being in the blood give you a certain feeling? Wouldn't it be some kind of change in brain state or operation to do that?

[iNow]

That's a somewhat complicated question. Do you have any familiarity with basic neuroscience, or have you looked up information about neuroendocrinology and/or neurochemistry before?

[SamBridge]

That's a somewhat complicated question. Do you have any familiarity with basic neuroscience, or have you looked up information about neuroendocrinology and/or neurochemistry before?

Well some chemistry and anatomy but not neuro science and neuro chemistry, try explaining it in layman's terms.

Edited February 2, 2013 by SamBridge

[iNow]

How about instead you try googling the terms I shared and come back with questions that are a bit more specific than "explain the neurobiology to me?"

Edited February 2, 2013 by iNow

[SamBridge]

How about instead you try googling the terms I shared and come back with questions that are a bit more specific than "explain the neurobiology to me?"

Or just make any attempt whatsoever to answer my question before determining anything.

[iNow]

Your question was how do chemicals in the blood change our feelings. To address that question requires building a reasonable foundation of knowledge. Ask a more specific question. I and others will try to help you answer it. Right now, however, you've essentially asked that we teach you an entire three semesters worth of material in one post.

 

Are you being intentionally difficult? Do you think I am?

[SamBridge]

Your question was how do chemicals in the blood change our feelings. To address that question requires building a reasonable foundation of knowledge. Ask a more specific question. I and others will try to help you answer it. Right now, however, you've essentially asked that we teach you an entire three semesters worth of material in one post.

 

Are you being intentionally difficult? Do you think I am?

Dude, all you gotta do or all anyone has to do is answer the question. How is it that hard for someone who claims to have knowledge in neuroscience? I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering about the question I asked. If you ask me you're the one who's being difficult. I can explain some basic properties of quantum physics to someone who's never studied quantum physics before, you should be able to explain some basic things in neuroscience that would answer or lead to answering the question about neuroscience if you have knowledge in neuroscience.

It would take you "semesters" of math to work up to an integral, but if someone didn't know anything about it they would et a general concept if someone said "it's the area under a graph that's comprised of boxes. If you want perfect accuracy you have to make those boxes infinitesimally small. You can get an estimate the area by making boxes under the graph which all have the same base, and calculation the height by doing the operation that i given in the function and multiplying those results. For example, let's say I have y=x^2, for every x value, the y value will be squared. 1^2 is 1, 2^2 is 4, 3^2 is 9. Now, let's say we want the area from x=0 to x=1, and we make 4 boxes. The which of each box is 1/4, which is .25. The height of each box will vary. For the first box we have .25 * .25^2, then we add that to .25 * 2*.25^2 and the reason we add a *2 is because the distance that box is from the origin is .25*2, then we add .25 * 3*.25..."

Edited February 2, 2013 by SamBridge

[iNow]

Of, FFS.

 

http://bit.ly/11u85zA

[Ringer]

Dude, all you gotta do or all anyone has to do is answer the question. How is it that hard for someone who claims to have knowledge in neuroscience? I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering about the question I asked. If you ask me you're the one who's being difficult. I can explain some basic properties of quantum physics to someone who's never studied quantum physics before, you should be able to explain some basic things in neuroscience that would answer or lead to answering the question about neuroscience if you have knowledge in neuroscience.

Try explaining exponents to someone who hasn't learned multiplication.

 

Also a basic problem is that you said that chemical is released in the blood, so you restrict yourself to hormones (or neurohormones) and their interactions between different parts of the nervous system as well as the other parts of the bodies. But a single hormone (or neurotransmitters) can have a different reaction to different tissues depending on the other things going on.

 

Basically all any of them do selectively excite or inhibit other neurons and tissues, but that doesn't really give a good answer to your question.

It would take you "semesters" of math to work up to an integral, but if someone didn't know anything about it they would et a general concept if someone said "it's the area under a graph that's comprised of boxes. If you want perfect accuracy you have to make those boxes infinitesimally small. You can get an estimate the area by making boxes under the graph which all have the same base, and calculation the height by doing the operation that i given in the function and multiplying those results. For example, let's say I have y=x^2, for every x value, the y value will be squared. 1^2 is 1, 2^2 is 4, 3^2 is 9. Now, let's say we want the area from x=0 to x=1, and we make 4 boxes. The which of each box is 1/4, which is .25. The height of each box will vary. For the first box we have .25 * .25^2, then we add that to .25 * 2*.25^2 and the reason we add a *2 is because the distance that box is from the origin is .25*2, then we add .25 * 3*.25..."

But an integral is something that is fairly specific, though it can work generally. You are asking for a specific answer to an extremely vague question. A better example is me asking you what does a particle do? It's such a vague question that any answer that explains anything a particle can do is right, but it probably wouldn't answer the question I wanted. You see what I mean?

 

Like I said, feelings and experience are just excitation or inhibitions in certain areas of the brain and nervous system. These can be caused by a wide range of factors.

[SamBridge]

Of, FFS.

 

http://bit.ly/11u85zA

If I wanted to google it I would have googled it, but this site claims to be a science site and so if there's some piece of information that is wrong it can be pointed out and the general information can be translated. I very much doubt you can understand quantum physics just from googling a few things. That the hell is wisegeek.com? At least on this site if some source is wrong about a scientific piece of information then someone can tell you. If you can just google everything what's the point of having this site? Let's just throw away the servers for this site and google everything. Unless the point of this site is not for googling everything but rather explaining things.

 

Try explaining exponents to someone who hasn't learned multiplication.

 

Also a basic problem is that you said that chemical is released in the blood, so you restrict yourself to hormones (or neurohormones) and their interactions between different parts of the nervous system as well as the other parts of the bodies. But a single hormone (or neurotransmitters) can have a different reaction to different tissues depending on the other things going on.

 

Basically all any of them do selectively excite or inhibit other neurons and tissues, but that doesn't really give a good answer to your question.But an integral is something that is fairly specific, though it can work generally. You are asking for a specific answer to an extremely vague question. A better example is me asking you what does a particle do? It's such a vague question that any answer that explains anything a particle can do is right, but it probably wouldn't answer the question I wanted. You see what I mean?

 

Like I said, feelings and experience are just excitation or inhibitions in certain areas of the brain and nervous system. These can be caused by a wide range of factors.

Multiplication isn't that hard of a concept, pre-schoolers can learn it, there's people who've learned calculus at like age 6. It seems more like that people just want an excuse to not have to type a lot of stuff and still look credible. "When a chemical capable of causing an emotion such as anger get's into the blood, why does that allow you to perceive that emotion?" That's really not vague.

BTW you can answer a question as vague as "what do particles do?" anyway, you can say "They do lots of things depending on the scale you look at them on. On a large scale like the world around you, they move about in seemingly predictable manners, but on the small scale it's much more complex. With today's current physics, it is known that all matter is consistent of really tiny pieces, pieces so small you cannot see them. These pieces can combine in different ways. What these pieces are made of is not entirely known, however experiments have shown they have properties that are somewhat like waves, like waves in an ocean, only they are waves in a type of field which can oscillate or "wave" in different manners. The smallest piece of matter that can retain it's properties can be an atom or molecule or combinations of them, depending on the material. An atom consists of particles in the center, and on the outside separated by much space are particles on the outside. On the inside, an atom has a clump of smaller particles stuck together called the "nucleus". The nucleus mainly consists of 3 particles: neutrons, protons and gluons. But what are these particles? Well in nature, there's something called electro-magnetism. Eletro-magnetism is a force that can allow objects to repel or attract each other..." and if you wanted me to go on I could and I'd be willing to for anyone that needed it.

Edited February 3, 2013 by SamBridge

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

It made sense to split all of these posts into their own thread, as they did not relate to the OP of the original thread (found here).

 

Regardless of where it was, however, the last few posts are off topic. Sam, you don't need to spend entire posts going through analogies to what are mostly irelevant points. Try to understand that what you are asking is a lot of information, even in simple terms, for someone to have to explain to you. In these sorts of cases it is easier and more courteous to do some of the leg work yourself by consulting Google or a book(s) and come back with more specific questions that don't take as much time and effort to explain.

[John Cuthber]

The simple answer is that a "feeling" is just chemicals in the brain. You could argue that it's electrical impulses, but those are produced by moving ions around.

[iNow]

Sam - Do you have a more specific follow-up question? For all of the time you've spent giving analogies and going on about how you would prefer people respond to you here, you could have instead been researching a few things about basic neuroscience, about sodium potassium channels, action potentials, and even proprioception.

 

As John quite poignantly summarized, the feeling IS the chemicals (or, more specifically, the aggregate and location of the electrical response triggered by those chemicals and ion fluctuations), which is why so many people here have requested you ask something more specific than "tell me how neuroscience works." Again, do you have a more specific follow-up question?

Edited February 3, 2013 by iNow

[SamBridge]

I didn't say "tell me how neuroscience works", I don't know how I can possibly more specific about the answer I want. It's start with a more basic question then. How is it that you perceive anything in the first place after the electrical impulses traveled to the brain?

[iNow]

How is it that you perceive anything in the first place after the electrical impulses traveled to the brain?

A stimulus triggers a response. That response propagates via chemoelectrical impulses. The destination of the signal, as well as it's intensity, depends almost entirely on the source. It is interpreted based on the neural infrastructure in place from past experiences, and the aggregate of the response (which connections are stimulated, which areas, etc.) is what drives the perception. There are some notable differences with pain response, but the above offers a general answer to your general question.

 

You may not realize that you asked "tell me how neuroscience works," but (while oversimplified) that is exactly what you've done. Can we please move past this childish self-entitled bratty bullshit and stick with actual questions now?

[Ringer]

I didn't say "tell me how neuroscience works", I don't know how I can possibly more specific about the answer I want. It's start with a more basic question then. How is it that you perceive anything in the first place after the electrical impulses traveled to the brain?

The reason I, and perhaps others, are having such a hard time knowing what you want is that asking how one perceives something could be taken in a number of different ways. It could mean what is subjective experience, how sensory information is encoded, how sensory information is stored, how is sensory information is complimentary to each other, what kinds of sensory information is there, what kinds of stimulus excite/inhibit which kinds of sensory neurons, how do sensory neurons interact with interneurons, etc. etc. etc. etc.

 

That's why we want you to be more specific, not only because the question as posed can only be answered well in multiple book sized texts, but also because none of us have any idea what knowledge you bring to the table.

[SamBridge]

A stimulus triggers a response. That response propagates via chemoelectrical impulses. The destination of the signal, as well as it's intensity, depends almost entirely on the source. It is interpreted based on the neural infrastructure in place from past experiences, and the aggregate of the response (which connections are stimulated, which areas, etc.) is what drives the perception. There are some notable differences with pain response, but the above offers a general answer to your general question.

 

You may not realize that you asked "tell me how neuroscience works," but (while oversimplified) that is exactly what you've done. Can we please move past this childish self-entitled bratty bullshit and stick with actual questions now?

At least now we're getting somewhere. The cause of the perception seems to be stimulated connections between neurons in a certain "perception" part of the brain. This does not seem too complicated me and you didn't have to be a brat about it at all, you could have started with that in the first place.

Now that we have that down, we can ask "how is it that a chemical sends a signal to the brain to cause connections when it is in the bloodstream?". We have an event that takes place, someone perceives that event via connections between neurons in the perception part of the brain after the signal has traveled from the eyes to the back of the brain and the neurons connected to those neurons that respond to the ones for that particular event connect to the hypothalamus and through some kind of stimuli that triggers a chemical reaction carried by the connections tells the hypothalamus to release a chemical into the blood, then by some mechanism the chemical in the blood somehow causes that processes (which is what I'm inquiring about) that sends a signals to the brain which connects between neurons that carry the information of the chemical to the perception part of the brain. As you said before it depends on how the neurons are connected, they may be connected in such a way that a certain a event does not cause the release of a certain chemical (which can obviously) easily be the case), but let's assume it was the chemical that caused anger that was released into the blood stream after said event. It almost seems like a feedback loop which would seem to explain why emotions seem to take more time to set in than reflexes.

You have a chemical in the blood, but what is it actually doing to send a signal to the brain to cause that process Does it chemically bond to a nerve cell and then in some reversible reaction return to it's normal state after the signal in some chemical process releases enough energy for the nerve cell to be stimulated and send a signal? Or perhaps get's "used up", but then that would maybe destroy nerve cells which means that hypothesis can't be correct?". Then after that signal travels, what specific property about that signal that was caused by a chemical reaction from an emotional hormone causes it to connect to neurons in the specific manner that they do, or is there not a specific way neurons connect? What is different in the signal of something like pain versus anger? Or perhaps there is not a difference of the signal, but what mechanism it travels from?

Remember this isn't being answered just for me, but for the future reference of anyone else with questions related to this, after these "complicated" questions are answered, they can be referenced if they are in fact accurate answers.

 

 

T

That's why we want you to be more specific, not only because the question as posed can only be answered well in multiple book sized texts, but also because none of us have any idea what knowledge you bring to the table.

I said that I didn't have a background in neuroscience, now it's up to the poster not to debate what the question is I'm asking, because I will ask for myself the question I want to ask, but rather to try and answer the question which I assume this site was made for doing.

Edited February 4, 2013 by SamBridge

[CharonY]

Due to the lack of knowledge of the basics, a satisfactory answer simply cannot be given. At least not without teaching a whole course on cell biology and some neurobiology.

Essentially you can imagine that the chemicals are transported to various parts of your body, including your brain, get recognized by affected cells via specific proteins on their surface (read up on "receptor binding") that leads to um.. complex stuff within the cell (due to "signaling cascades").

The overall result is a physiological reaction that can be perceived as a certain type of feeling. The way the physiological change or response actually gets translated into a perception (i.e. feeling) is quite complex and poorly understood.

[fresh]

Ok so the chemical is released into the blood, but how does the chemical being in the blood give you a certain feeling? Wouldn't it be some kind of change in brain state or operation to do that?

 

Being a layman, can i ask :

*are we capable of feeling the said chemical released into the blood ?

*do we always feel the said chemical ?

*All the chemical or some chemical can be felt by us ?

*why use "feel/feeling" ?

 

being a layman, my understanding is our brain responses to both external and internal environment, but we dont always feel it.

external environment means the place we are living in;

internal environment means our body itself.

 

any stupid statement above, PL correct me.

thanks.

[SamBridge]

Due to the lack of knowledge of the basics, a satisfactory answer simply cannot be given. At least not without teaching a whole course on cell biology and some neurobiology.

Essentially you can imagine that the chemicals are transported to various parts of your body, including your brain, get recognized by affected cells via specific proteins on their surface (read up on "receptor binding") that leads to um.. complex stuff within the cell (due to "signaling cascades").

The overall result is a physiological reaction that can be perceived as a certain type of feeling. The way the physiological change or response actually gets translated into a perception (i.e. feeling) is quite complex and poorly understood.

I think that is less complex that what I described. I can understand a complex chain of events. If it's impossible to learn/teach basics, how did anyone else become a neurosurgeon? They were just born neurosurgeons? I'm pretty 100% sure there is a way to describe the process without having to take a semester if my assumption is correct that you did not spend an entire semester just on that one problem. If the way something in science happens is misunderstood why not correct it and solve the problem?

A chemical get's released into the blood then reacts with a cell you did not specify in a manner you did not specify. I think there's more too it than that. I don't need to know the chemical formula of the specific proteins, someone can just say "a specific protein" ad "a different specific protein" or just use the names of the protein and perhaps if it's unnecessary it can be explained if a positive or negative charge around the molecule is important for the reaction.

 

I really don't understand how this site is able to properly explain calculus and quantum physics and relativity but can't explain what seems to be a basic process in neuroscience.

Edited February 5, 2013 by SamBridge

[iNow]

A chemical get's released into the blood then reacts with a cell you did not specify in a manner you did not specify.

Are you asking about neurotransmitters or hormones? Why do you keep talking about release into the blood instead of release into the synapse?

[Ringer]

I think that is less complex that what I described. I can understand a complex chain of events. If it's impossible to learn/teach basics, how did anyone else become a neurosurgeon? They were just born neurosurgeons? I'm pretty 100% sure there is a way to describe the process without having to take a semester if my assumption is correct that you did not spend an entire semester just on that one problem. If the way something in science happens is misunderstood why not correct it and solve the problem?

They spent years of study learning what they know. They researched and worked to learn and understand. It didn't take a few lines of communication on a forum.

A chemical get's released into the blood then reacts with a cell you did not specify in a manner you did not specify. I think there's more too it than that. I don't need to know the chemical formula of the specific proteins, someone can just say "a specific protein" ad "a different specific protein" or just use the names of the protein and perhaps if it's unnecessary it can be explained if a positive or negative charge around the molecule is important for the reaction.

 

I really don't understand how this site is able to properly explain calculus and quantum physics and relativity but can't explain what seems to be a basic process in neuroscience.

Really? You expect to understand what constitutes in depth physiology and neuroscience and you still only say chemicals released in the blood. I explicitly stated that restricts you to hormones, so synaptic communication is out and with it most intra-neural communication. That is why we ask you to be more specific in your question and show some effort, not expect us to be your personal tutors. We help, if you want a tutor I expect at least 15 U.S.D/hour. Edited February 5, 2013 by Ringer

[iNow]

if you want a tutor I expect at least 15 U.S.D/hour.

 

I suspect that you'd probably be a better tutor than I would, but I have to be honest and let you know that my time is worth a lot more than that.

[SamBridge]

Are you asking about neurotransmitters or hormones? Why do you keep talking about release into the blood instead of release into the synapse?

Well that's one of the problems I had, why wouldn't emotions just be released throughout the brain via neurological signals and chemicals , why does it need to travel through the blood first?

 

They spent years of study learning what they know. They researched and worked to learn and understand. It didn't take a few lines of communication on a forum.Really? You expect to understand what constitutes in depth physiology and neuroscience and you still only say chemicals released in the blood. I explicitly stated that restricts you to hormones, so synaptic communication is out and with it most intra-neural communication. That is why we ask you to be more specific in your question and show some effort, not expect us to be your personal tutors. We help, if you want a tutor I expect at least 15 U.S.D/hour.

 

Your description couldn't even compare to even half of my half-attempt to explain "what does a particle do?" and I don't charge anything at all and neither does any other senior member on this site, so I would not be so quick to be full of myself, you are here by your own choice, if it is a burden to post then by all means focus on your life more and get it together, this site isn't worth a life, other people can take your place and post.

On top of all of that I told you this isn't just for my answer but for anyone viewing this site who has that question because as multiple people have pointed out it appears to be complex in layman terms, and I'm sure it would be easier to have an answer to refer to rather than keep posting some long answer over and over.

I did specify multiple times that I expected the hormone would interact with a nerve cell in such a manner that it would send a signal to the perceptive part of the brain which then signal pulses between connected neurons which are caused by the release of a chemical from the impulse reaching the brain initially. If it is impossible for a chemical in the blood to cause a signal to be sent to the brain that is perceived as a feeling then say so.

This site is made to answer questions. If you can't answer the question, don't post a pseudo answer, simple as that.

No one posts questions to get opinions on the nature of their questions, or at least most people don't, they post questions to see if they are correctly interpreting something and/or to get an answer.

Edited February 5, 2013 by SamBridge

[iNow]

Well that's one of the problems I had, why wouldn't emotions just be released throughout the brain via neurological signals and chemicals , why does it need to travel through the blood first?

Who besides you ever said it did?