It's been theorized that problems with endorphin production or the binding process may be responsible for clinical depression or sudden shifts in emotions. If endorphins are at least partly responsible for saying "when," a person who doesn't have enough may never receive the mental cue to stop washing his or her hands and will continue until that signal is received. When you, the average person, are washing your hands, there's a point when you register that the task has been satisfactorily completed. Intriguingly, endorphins (or a lack thereof) may be responsible for certain forms of mental illness such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Next, we'll learn how endorphins can make us more emotional than an hour spent standing at the craps table. There are at least 20 different kinds of endorphins, and one kind, beta-endorphins, are stronger than morphine and have been shown to play a part in everything from alcoholism to diabetes to aging of the brain. However, new imaging methods allow researchers to study the ebb and flow of endorphins as they interact with human brain cells, verifying their role in the rush that exercise - and other triggers - sometimes prompts. It wasn't possible to measure endorphin levels in the human brain without harming the subject, so the role of endorphins in the "runner's high" and other periods of euphoria or mood change were still hotly debated. Until recently, much of what we've learned about endorphins has been gained from monitoring endorphins in the human bloodstream and in rats' brains. They originate in various parts of your body - the pituitary gland, your spinal cord and throughout other parts of your brain and nervous system - and interact mainly with receptors in cells found in regions of the brain responsible for blocking pain and controlling emotion. Neurotransmitters play a key role in the function of the central nervous system and can either prompt or suppress the further signaling of nearby neurons.Įndorphins are produced as a response to certain stimuli, especially stress, fear or pain. Endorphins are neurotransmitters, chemicals that pass along signals from one neuron to the next. Enter endorphins: your own private narcotic.