Biochemistry of Love

           Extra Credit Summary

                 Patricia Zachary

                      Psyc100, South Puget Sound Community College, Professor Lillie McCatty

February 7, 2016

        Biochemistry of love is a nature response that lies within our brain. The context of love is based on our interpersonal relationship. Love does affect our physical and mental state. Think about the relationships that have failed and how it affected you. What do we have without a loving relationship? Many of us fail to develop rapidly and progress after such a tragic in our life. Our body does respond to interaction with love ones. Social interactions between people can trigger physiological processes that can influence emotional and mental states in us.

        Humans have many definition of love.  I feel that love is so easy to feel and hard so hard to explain and even define. Living things of love starts in the very simple part of your brain, where the emotional core of the human nervous system got better long before the brain. So that’s why they say feelings are transmitted by the vagus nerve. Oxytocin is the neuropeptide that appears in biochemistry of love. (Cater & Porges) The major roles of oxytocin are the loving relationship that parents have for their infants and the support that they give each other. I feel that human mothers have a strong bond with their baby after birth and mammals are the same way with their babies. Oxytocin makes it easier for a woman to have no fear and less anxious around her baby. So if your life is without love how can you fully live? Having love protects us from stress and does increase our understanding of the way many of us let our emotions have an impact on our health. I learned that in humans, oxytocin plays a big role in social interactions and parental behavior. (Carter, 1998)  The interactions of oxytocin with a related neuropeptide are known as vasopressin, which is important to social bond. (Kenkel et al., 2012) Oxytocin and vasopressin have shared functions but not identical in actions.

        Vasopressin support behavior for guarding a partner and territory in which is associated with physical and emotional support. (Carter, 1998) Vasopressin also protect physiologically in the harm of danger. It was very surprising to know that the biology of fatherhood less concerns than motherhood. Living things of love truly starts in the very simple part of your brain.  People need to keep in mind that hormones such as oxytocin may have a chance to protect us against stress and disease. (Carter, 1997) Knowledge will increase the way we understand stuff and the way that our emotion have a huge impact on our life. We need to learn to give and receive love so we can live a better life and have good health.