Gutterpump
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I was doing some research and came across this great post on another forum and thought I would quote it here. Very interesting and lots of great info:
Frequent masturbation and ejaculation stimulate acetylcholine/parasympathetic nervous functions excessively, resulting in the over production of sex hormones and neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, dopamine and serotonin. Abundant and unusually amount of these hormones and neurotransmitters can cause the brain and adrenal glands to perform excessive dopamine-norepinephrine-epinephrine conversion and turn the brain and body functions to be extremely sympathetic. In other words, there is a big change of body chemistry when a client compulsively masturbates.
For the individual engaging in compulsive masturbation, they often experience problems with concentration and memory. This is a dangerous side effect of compulsive masturbation and signals that the brain is being over drained of acetylcholine. This behavior can also drain the motor nerves, neuro-muscular endings, and tissues of acetylcholine and replace it with too much stress adrenalin which is where memory loss, lack of concentration, and eye floaters come from. To fight these symptoms, the chemical levels in their body needs to be balanced.
Research shows that during ejaculation, men release a cocktail of brain chemicals, including norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin, nitric oxide (NO), and the hormone prolactin. The release of prolactin is linked to the feeling of sexual satisfaction, and it also mediates the “recovery time” that men are well aware of—the time a guy must wait before “giving it another go.” Studies have also shown that men deficient in prolactin have faster recovery times.
Prolactin levels are naturally higher during sleep, and animals injected with the chemical become tired immediately. This suggests a strong link between prolactin and sleep, so it’s likely that the hormone’s release during orgasm causes men to feel sleepy.
(Side note: prolactin also explains why men are sleepier after intercourse than after masturbation. For unknown reasons, intercourse orgasms release four times more prolactin than masturbatory orgasms, according to a recent study.)
Oxytocin and vasopressin, two other chemicals released during orgasm, are also associated with sleep. Their release frequently accompanies that of melatonin, the primary hormone that regulates our body clocks. Oxytocin is also thought to reduce stress levels, which again could lead to relaxation and sleepiness.
It’s also possible that sleepiness is just a “side effect” associated with a more evolutionarily important reason for the release of oxytocin and vasopressin. In addition to being associated with sleep, both chemicals are also intimately involved in what is called “pair bonding,” the social attachment human mates commonly share. The release of these brain chemicals during orgasm heightens feelings of bonding and trust between sexual partners, which may partially explain the link between sex and emotional attachment. This bond is favorable should the couple have a baby, as cooperative child rearing maximizes the young one’s chances for survival.
There are those who may be addicted to the love "high" from the amphetamine-like rush of dopamine, norepinephrine and phenylethylamine.
Because the body builds up a tolerance to these chemicals, it begins to take more and more to give love junkies that high. They go through relationship after relationship to get their fix.
In romantic love, when two people have sex, oxytocin is released, which helps bond the relationship. According to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, the hormone oxytocin has been shown to be "associated with the ability to maintain healthy interpersonal relationships and healthy psychological boundaries with other people." When it is released during orgasm, it begins creating an emotional bond -- the more sex, the greater the bond. Oxytocin is also associated with mother/infant bonding, uterine contractions during labor in childbirth and the "let down" reflex necessary for breastfeeding.
Vasopressin, an antidiuretic hormone, is another chemical that has been associated with the formation of long-term, monogamous relationships (see "Are We Alone in Love?"). Dr. Fisher believes that oxytocin and vasopressin interfere with the dopamine and norepinephrine pathways, which might explain why passionate love fades as attachment grows.
Endorphins, the body's natural painkillers, also play a key role in long-term relationships. They produce a general sense of well-being, including feeling soothed, peaceful and secure. Like dopamine and norepinephrine, endorphins are released during sex; they are also released during physical contact, exercise and other activities. According to Michel Odent of London's Primal Health Research Center, endorphins induce a "drug-like dependency."
DOPAMINE OVERVIEW
One of the neurotransmitters playing a major role in addiction is dopamine. Many of the concepts that apply to dopamine apply to other neurotransmitters as well.
As a chemical messenger, dopamine is similar to adrenaline. Dopamine affects brain processes that control movement, emotional response, and ability to experience pleasure and pain.
Regulation of dopamine plays a crucial role in our mental and physical health. Neurons containing the neurotransmitter dopamine are clustered in the midbrain in an area called the substantia nigra .
Dopamine is a phenethylamine naturally produced by the human body. In the brain, dopamine functions as a neurotransmitter, activating the five types of dopamine receptor - D1, D2, D3, D4 and D5, and their variants. Dopamine is produced in several areas of the brain, including the substantia nigra.
Dopamine is also a neurohormone released by the hypothalamus. Its main function as a hormone is to inhibit the release of prolactin from the anterior lobe of the pituitary.
As a member of the catecholamine family, dopamine is a precursor to epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) in the biosynthetic pathways for these neurotransmitters.
Dopamine is biosynthesized in the body (mainly by nervous tissue and adrenal glands) first by the hydration of the amino acid L-tyrosine to L-DOPA via the enzyme tyrosine 3-monooxygenase, which is often known by its former name tyrosine hydroxylase, and then by the decarboxylation of DOPA by Aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (which is often referred to as dopa decarboxylase).
Dopamine has many functions in the brain. Most importantly, dopamine is central to the reward system. In nature, we learn to repeat behaviors that lead to maximise rewards. Dopamine is therefore believed by many to provide a teaching signal to parts of the brain responsible for acquiring new behavior.
DOPAMINE & MOVEMENT
Via the dopamine receptors D1, D2, D3, D4 and D5, dopamine reduces muscle contraction. Insufficient dopamine biosynthesis in the dopaminergic neurons can cause Parkinson's disease, in which a person loses the ability to execute smooth, controlled movements. The phasic dopaminergic activation seems to be crucial with respect to a lasting internal encoding of motor skills.
DOPAMINE & COGNITION
In the frontal lobes, dopamine controls the flow of information from other areas of the brain. Dopamine disorders in this region of the brain can cause a decline in neurocognitive functions, especially memory, attention, and problem-solving. Reduced dopamine concentrations in the prefrontal cortex are thought to contribute to attention deficit disorder.
DOPAMINE THE REGULATOR
Dopamine is the primary neuroendocrine regulator of the secretion of prolactin from the anterior pituitary gland. Dopamine produced by neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus is secreted into the hypothalamo-hypophysial blood vessels of the median eminence, which supply the pituitary gland. The lactotrope cells that produce prolactin, in the absence of dopamine, secrete prolactin continuously; dopamine inhibits this secretion.
PROLACTIN
"The major effect of increased prolactin is a decrease in normal levels of sex hormones — estrogen in women and testosterone in men."
Another effect, recently discovered by the University of Paisley and the Technische Hochschule Zürich, is to provide the body with sexual gratification after sexual acts. The hormone represses the effect of dopamine, which is responsible for sexual arousal, thus causing the male's refractory period. The amount of prolactin can be an indicator for the amount of sexual satisfaction and relaxation.
Conditions causing an increase in Prolactin: Excess of dopamine.
DOPAMINE & PLEASURE
Dopamine is commonly associated with the pleasure system of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate a person proactively to perform certain activities. Dopamine is released (particularly in areas such as the nucleus accumbens and striatum) by naturally rewarding experiences such as food, sex, use of certain drugs and neutral stimuli that become associated with them. This theory is often discussed in terms of drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines, which seem to directly or indirectly lead to the increase of dopamine in these areas, and in relation to neurobiological theories of chemical addiction, arguing that these dopamine pathways are pathologically altered in addicted persons.
However, cocaine and amphetamine influence separate mechanisms of action. Cocaine is a dopamine transporter blocker that competitively inhibits dopamine uptake to increase the lifetime of dopamine and augments an overabundance of dopamine (an increase of up to 150%) within the parameters of the dopamine neurotransmitters. Like cocaine, amphetamines increase the concentration of dopamine in the synaptic gap, but by a different mechanism. Amphetamines are similar in structure to dopamine, and so can enter the terminal button of the presynaptic neuron via its dopamine transporters as well as by diffusing through the neural membrane directly. When entering inside the presynaptic neuron, amphetamines force the dopamine molecules out of their storage vesicles and expel them into the synaptic gap by making the dopamine transporters work in reverse.
It has been argued that dopamine is more associated with anticipatory desire and motivation (commonly referred to as "wanting") as opposed to actual consummatory pleasure (commonly referred to as "liking"). Dopamine is not released when unpleasant or aversive stimuli are encountered, and so motivates towards the pleasure of avoiding or removing the unpleasant stimuli.
Possibly the reason that prolonged masturbation is highly pleasurable vs. a short quick jerk off.
Recent research suggests that the firing of dopamine neurons is a motivational chemical as a result of reward-anticipation. This is based on evidence that, when a reward is perceived to be greater than expected, the firing of certain dopamine neurons increases, which correspondingly increases desire or motivation toward the reward.
Clues to dopamine's role in motivation, desire, and pleasure have come from studies performed on animals. In one study rats were depleted of dopamine by up to 99% in the nucleus accumbens and neostriatum using 6-hydroxydopamine. With this large reduction in dopamine, the rats would no longer eat by their own volition. The researchers then force fed the rats food and noted whether they had the proper facial expressions indicating whether they liked or disliked it. The researchers of this study concluded that the reduction in dopamine did not reduce the rat's consummatory pleasure, only the desire to actually eat. In another study, mutant hyperdopaminergic (increased dopamine) mice show higher "wanting" but not "liking" of sweet rewards.
In humans, though, drugs that reduce dopamine activity (neuroleptics, [eg. some antipsychotics) have been shown to reduce motivation as well as cause anhedonia (the inability to experience pleasure).
Sociability is also closely tied to dopamine neurotransmission.
Dopamine may also have a role in the salience ('noticeableness') of perceived objects and events, with potentially important stimuli such as: 1) rewarding things or 2) dangerous or threatening things seeming more noticeable or important.[12] This hypothesis argues that dopamine assists decision-making by influencing the priority, or level of desire, of such stimuli to the person concerned.
Pharmacological blockade of brain dopamine receptors increases rather than decreases drug-taking behavior. Since blocking dopamine decreases desire, the increase in drug taking behavior may be seen as not a chemical desire but as a deeply psychological desire to just 'feel something'.
Deficits in dopamine levels are implicated in Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD), and stimulant medications used to successfully treat the disorder increase dopamine neurotransmitter levels, leading to decreased symptoms.
