Happiness Lowers Blood Pressure

Gene module controlled by dopamine - the happiness hormone produces an agent that lowers blood pressure, find scientists. This finding opens up new avenues for therapies that are remote-controlled via the subsconscious.

The endogenous hormone dopamine triggers feelings of happiness.

While its release is induced, among other things, by the "feel-good" classics sex, drugs or food, the brain does not content itself with a kick; it remembers the state of happiness and keeps wanting to achieve it again. Dopamine enables us to make the "right" decisions in order to experience even more moments of happiness.

Now, a team of researchers headed by ETH-Zurich professor Martin Fussenegger from the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) in Basel has discovered a way to use the body's dopamine system therapeutically.

The researchers have created a new genetic module that can be controlled via dopamine.

The feel-good messenger molecule activates the module depending on the dosage. In response to an increase in the dopamine level in the blood, the module produces the desired active agent.

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The module consists of several biological components of the human organism, which are interconnected to form a synthetic signalling cascade. Dopamine receptors are found at the beginning of the cascade as sensors. A particular agent is produced as an end product: either a model protein called SEAP or ANP, a powerful vasodilator lowering blood pressure.

Based on the experiments, the researchers were able to demonstrate that dopamine is not only formed in the brain in corresponding feel-good situations, but also in nerves in the vegetative system, the so-called sympathetic nervous system, which are closely knit around blood vessels.

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Source-ANI