The 3 catecholamines are Dopamine, Norepinephrine, and Epinephrine.
Hey what’s up guys matt with the movement system today we’re going to talk about the catecholamines we’re going to talk about the bioenergetic pathway that leads us to producing dopamine norepinephrine and epinephrine and then at the end we’re going to talk about the main functions of each and why they’re important for us let’s go ahead and dive into it okay
So to start off let’s talk about the bioenergetic pathway that actually leads us to producing the catecholamines so if we think about it we have to start out by eating a protein source that could be meat milk eggs any protein source that protein has amino acids in it one of the essential amino acids phenylalanine is the starting point so we digest phenylalanine
In our diet then the body can actually turn that into a non-essential amino acid tyrosine the next process would be actually converting that tyrosine into l-dopa and then l-dopa or levodopa is the precursor to dopamine which is a catecholamine and there are enzymes and cofactors involved in each of those conversions for example it takes vitamin b6 as a cofactor
To convert from levodopa to dopamine okay so that’s the bioenergetic pathway that gets us to dopamine but then we can actually convert between the catecholamines dopamine can convert to norepinephrine with a cofactor of vitamin c and then norepinephrine can actually be converted to epinephrine with a cofactor of sam sam so big picture this process starts with
Consuming protein which is made of amino acids including a central amino acid phenylalanine and then through a number of enzymes and cofactors we can synthesize the catecholamines in the adrenal medulla okay so that’s how we produce the catecholamines but then what do the catecholamines actually do in our body so the functions of dopamine are actually fairly different
Than the functions of norepinephrine and epinephrine when we think about dopamine we mainly think about this as a neurotransmitter the neurotransmitter dopamine is involved in reward and motivation pathways in the brain as well as motor control pathways dopamine is often known for its role in parkinson’s disease in some cases the dopamine producing cells of the
Substantia can start to die off and when around 80 percent of those cells start to die off we see movement problems including tremors loss of balance loss of motor control and rigidity and parkinson’s disease can actually be treated by the precursor of dopamine that we talked about levodopa so norepinephrine and epinephrine become really important during exercise
They’re often considered your fight or flight hormones because they’re released when the heart rate’s high when there’s high stress on the system whenever norepinephrine and epinephrine are released the result is increased blood pressure increased muscle contraction via increased calcium release increased energy availability again that mobilization of fuel sources
Increased testosterone growth hormone and igf-1 so it’s not directly causing hypertrophy and growth but it’s stimulating other hormones and then also norepinephrine and epinephrine are going to increase vasodilation so helping stimulate blood flow so all of these actions of epinephrine and norepinephrine are to increase energy availability increase the blood flow
To the working muscles to help you breathe and work hard through high intensity efforts all right guys i hope that helps you understand the roles in the physiology and the functions of the catecholamines if it was make sure you go ahead and hit the like button if you want to learn more go ahead and subscribe and hit that notification bell thanks for watching catch you in the next one
Transcribed from video
What are the Catecholamines? | Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Epinephrine | Physiology and Main Functions By The Movement System
