['lizbeth]

Receptor-ology 101 by Candance Pert, Ph.D. Everything You Need to Feel Go(o)d

"To begin with, virtually every cell in the body is studded with thousands of tiny structures called receptors. Like the sense organs - the eyes, nose, and ears - the job of the receptors is to pick up signals coming at them from the surrounding space. The They're so important that a full 40 percent of our DNA is devoted to making sure that they're perfectly reproduced from generation to generation.

Once the receptors received a signal, the information is transferred to deep within the cell's interior, where tiny engines roar into action and initiate key processes. Data coming in this way directs cell division and growth, cell migration for attacking enemies and making repairs, and cell metabolism to conserve or spend energy - to name just a few of the receptor-activated activities.

The signal comes from other cells and is carried by a juice that we call information substance. These juices from the brain, sexual organs, gut, and heart - literally everywhere - communicate cell to cell, providing an infrastructure for the 'conversation' going on through the bodymind. You know these juices as hormones, neurotransmitters, and peptides; and we scientists refer to all three with one word: ligand. This term is from ligare, a Latin word meaning "to bind", and is used because of the way that the substances latch on so tightly to the cell's surface receptors.

Information-carrying ligands are responsible for 98 percent of all data transfer in body and brain. The remaining 2 percent of communication takes place at the synapse, between brain cells firing and releasing neurotransmitters across a gap to hit receptors on the other side.

. . . There are only 200 peptides mapped in the brain and body, each one sounding a complex emotional chord - such as bliss, hunger, anger, relaxation, or satiety - when their signal is received by the cell. I've devoted my 30-plus career to studying peptides such as endorphins and other substances.