Talking about love, everyone will nod their head and then shake their head. The first nod of the head is a signal given to say "Oh yes, I have experienced that". After that, he will shake his head because even though he has fallen in love many times, he still doesn't understand the symptoms. Yes, it's true, like the song lyrics "falling in love has a million feelings", the symptoms of falling in love have a very broad meaning, different for each person, and can even vary from person to person on different occasions. On the one hand, someone who falls in love can become more confident, stronger or braver. However, on the other hand, love can make a weightlifter feel weak and unable to even lift his own body, or make a professional speaker suddenly become tongue-tied and unable to produce any words. A molecular biochemist may no longer see the sequence of nitrogen bases that make up DNA as A, T, G, and C, but as a sequence of C, I, N, T, and A that repeats itself in each intron and exon. That's how love is, it makes many things irrational. Then, questions started to arise. Is there a rational explanation of love? Why does someone fall in love? Biochemistry tries to answer some of these questions.
Biochemically, the feeling of love is related to a hormone, namely norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is a phenylethylamine derivative compound produced by the adrenal medulla, which is an extension of the parasympathetic nervous system found in the brain. Norepinephrine is formed in three steps from its precursor the amino acid tyrosine. The first stage is tyrosine hydroxylation to form dopa. The second stage is the decarboxylation of dopa to form dopamine. The third stage is hydroxylation of the dopamine side chain to produce norepinephrine.
Norepinephrine works by binding to receptors located on the surface of liver cells. The binding between norepinephrine and this receptor triggers the formation of cAMP as a second messenger in cells. Many things are influenced by cAMP. One of them is triggering a cascade reaction which ultimately activates protein kinase A (PKA). Protein kinase A, directly or indirectly, will phosphorylate various proteins, one of which is the enzyme glycogen phosphorylase. This enzyme causes glycogen to be phosphorylated and actively hydrolyzed to produce glucose-1-phosphate. Glucose-1-phosphate can be converted by other cells through glycolysis to produce energy in the form of ATP. Allegedly, this is what causes people who are in love to have more energy than people who are not in love.
Norepinephrine and its derivative hormones such as epinephrine are also known to trigger contractions of muscle tissue, be it skeletal muscle or heart muscle, through a similar mechanism. This may explain a little why some people who fall in love suddenly have their hearts beat fast and their tongues become numb when they speak.
In several further studies, administering norepinephrine to some depression sufferers in certain doses can cause 60% of sufferers to be released from depression. Sufferers also experience improvements in energy, concentration and mood. People who fall in love will naturally increase the production of norepinephrine in the body. Norepinephrine can act as a neurotransmitter that provides effects similar to narcotics. Norepinephrine conveys happy messages to the brain. This causes smiles to form on the faces of people who are in love.
*Quoted from various sources
*Requires a lot of improvement
Written by: Rizmahardian Ashari Kurniawan
