Heritage_and_Hormones

Heredity and Hormones. by..... November 24, 2010 Instructor: Kristina Green Our body is composed for complex systems that help us to react to situations, solve problems and being unique in our own way. In order to understand better all this process we need to research our heritage, and through this we may have a better understanding of how this can affect our behavior. In general, the glands of the endocrine system and the hormones are consider the most important “part” to send messages to cells, organs and even indicated to our body the function that it has to make. The endocrine system is the one that has the capability to regale our growth, mood, metabolism, sexual and tissue functions. Hormones have a big impact on human behavior, especially mood and weight. Most people relate hormone with puberty. Puberty is the time when a human body goes thought many chemical and physical changes. To this we can attributed enlargement in the breast (for girls), change of mood and pubic and under arm hair. The endocrine system is formed by the pituitary gland, the thyroid gland, the hypothalamus, the pineal body, the adrenal glands, and the ovaries and testes. Each gland has a different hormone and each one is responsible for different functions of the body. The hormone that it can affect a person’s behavior is the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland realizes a hormone called thyroxin, this is responsible to regulate metabolism that at the same time it will determinate is the person’s weight. When this hormone is overactive can produce symptoms, such as insomnia, reduced attention, fatigue, agitation, difficulty at the time to make decisions, and reducing concentration. For several years testosterone has been attributed to aggression. Most men have a higher level of testosterone, having higher levels of aggression than women. Women in the other hand have higher level of estrogen; this hormone reaches the highest level at the menstrual cycle. A good example of behavior changes in women is called “pms”, this happen because during this cycle the estrogen level drops off. The consequences of this lower level can be depression and most of the times bad mood. Any hormone in our body that is not in a normal level will produce a change in our body in general, and sometime because of it we can also have notable behavior and mood changes. The genes or heritage that we get from our parent cannot be controlled for sciences, because by the combination from it we will get a new and complete genetic combination, forming a unique individual. There are many traits that can be attributed to heredity. For example, freckles on a person's face or if one of the parents suffers of anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, or any other mental illness, the kids can have the possibility to suffer of one of this illness. There have been many studies that have explained that specific genes may cause aggression or drastic behavior changes but because behavior can have several numbers of environmental factors, these studies have not been successful. Through this paper we can see that heredity’s function is to dictates the possibility of the range of hormones we can have in life and hormones dictate all kind of changes, such as puberty signs, moods, anxiety, depression, etc. Depending in our life style we may have some influence in hormones changes, but what will never change is our heritage or genes. Reference -Evolutions Voyage. (1996).What is evolutionary psychology. Retrieved February 6, 2009, at: http://www.evoyage.com/Whatis.html -Morris, A. (2005). The Biological Basis of Behavior. Twelfth Edition. ( p.p 76-88)