You and I are in a lot of ways just bubbling cauldrens of chemicals
A whole lot of what we think and feel and experience during the day
is the result of chemical compounds binding with tiny receptors all over our bodies
making us feel excited, scared, anxious or maybe just sleepy
And in the past couple of weeks research has offered some new insights into our biochemistry
Take the recent news that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may soon for the first time
approve a drug designed specifically to cause sexual arousal
Last month an advisory panel recommended that the FDA green-light a proposed drug called Flibanserin
which is said to increase sexual desire in pre-menopausal women
It's been described in the media as "Viagra for women"
which it isn't really, mainly because Viagra doesn't actually affect a man's sex drive
Instead, it and other drugs like it are vasodilators
compounds that relax blood vessels to stimulate blood flow
They just help make erections possible when men are arosued
But Flibanserin supposedly acts on the sex drive itself
helping to stimulate arousal in otherwise healthy women who feel little or no sexual desire
The company behind the drug called Sprout
told the FDA that it doesn't exactly know how Flibanserin works
But it seems to act partly as an agonist, or a chemical that imitates the body's own signalling chemicals
In this case, they say it binds to receptors in the brain
that are typically triggered by dopamine and norepinphrine,
two of the more famously stimulating neurotransmitters,
that your body releases when you're excited and generally aroused
At the same time, the drug also seems to act as an antagonist,
or blocker of neurotransmitter that inhibit excitement-
particularly serotonin, which regulates your sleep cycle
Some groups have praised the approval of the drug
because they say it closes a gender gap in sexual medicine
While Viagra and lots of other medications are available for male sexual health
there is nothing on the market that does the same for females
But, the results of the trials of Flibanserin are only slightly better than placebos
Which could explain that there are side effects
that come with altering your brain's chemistry
And in the drugs trials the most common were: low blood pressure, dizziness and syncope (or the loss of consciousness)
particularly in women who drink alcohol
The final decision on Flibanserin will be made in August
Meanwhile, in some other research into our biochemistry
is shedding light on an unusual outbreak:
an outbreak of nacrolepsy
Its most common symptom is a rather terrifying condition known as cataplexy,
in which a patient's voluntary muscle control briefly stops
resulting in anything from drooping eyelids, to total physical collapse
And it's typically triggered by strong emotions
whether it's a fit of anger, or fear, or even a big, strong belly-laugh
But in Europe, many physicians noticed that cases of narcolepsy started to increase in 2009,
with about 1,300 cases being reported during the outbreak of the H1N1 'flu
And last week, a team of biologists said they may have found the possible cause:
a vaccine that was supposed to prevent the 'flu
Narcolepsy meanwhile, is thought to be caused by a deficiency in the neurotransmitter called hypocretin
When it binds to receptors in your brain, hypocretin makes you feel alert and awake
The biologists found that:
And it turned out that the narcolepsy outbreaks were most common
where a brand of a vaccine called Pandemrix was used
And Pandemrix contained a lot more of that particular protein
So:
Now the researchers aren't sure that the cause was the vaccine itself,
which in any case hasn't been used since 2010
Instead, the real cause may have been those viral proteins
no matter how they get into the body
Because:
So taken together, this more be more evidence that narcolepsy is actually an autoimmune disease
and that people who have it respond to infections by producing antibodies that attack their own hypocretin receptors
Because apparently, getting the 'flu wasn't bad enough
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