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Bone, not adrenaline, drives fight or flight response
When faced with a predator or sudden danger, the heart rate goes up, breathing becomes more rapid, and fuel in the form of glucose is pumped throughout the body to prepare an animal to fight or flee.
These physiological changes, which constitute the "fight or flight" response, are thought to be triggered in part by the hormone adrenaline.
But a new study from Columbia researchers suggests that bony vertebrates can't muster this response to danger without the skeleton. The researchers found in mice and humans that almost immediately after the brain recognizes danger, it instructs the skeleton to flood the bloodstream with the bone-derived hormone osteocalcin, which is needed to turn on the fight or flight response.
"In bony vertebrates, the acute stress response is not possible without osteocalcin," says the study's senior investigator Gérard Karsenty, MD, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
"The view of bones as merely an assembly of calcified tubes is deeply entrenched in our biomedical culture," Karsenty says. But about a decade ago, his lab hypothesized and demonstrated that the skeleton has hidden influences on other organs.
The research revealed that the skeleton releases osteocalcin, which travels through the bloodstream to affect the functions of the biology of the pancreas, the brain, muscles, and other organs.
A series of studies since then have shown that osteocalcin helps regulate metabolism by increasing the ability of cells to take in glucose, improves memory, and helps animals run faster with greater endurance.
More information: "Mediation of the acute stress response by the skeleton," Cell Metabolism (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.08.012
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @06:39PM (13 children)
How does the brain instruct the skeleton to do anything? Nerve endings don't go into the bone as far as I know.
(Score: 1) by beernutz on Tuesday September 17 2019, @06:47PM (2 children)
I wonder if it could be a chemical signal maybe?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @08:03PM
Some calcium ion channel?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 17 2019, @10:28PM
Like adrenaline?
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(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 17 2019, @06:48PM (2 children)
Nerves aren't the only things that carry instructions around the body. For a simple "do something that's going to be the same every time and do it right now" a hormone or other chemical signal works just fine.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday September 17 2019, @07:39PM (1 child)
OTOH, hormones circulate a bit more slowly than nerve signals transmit.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 17 2019, @11:26PM
Not too slowly if they're part of the fight or flight reflex. That's fairly time-critical by nature.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Tuesday September 17 2019, @07:33PM (5 children)
I wonder how bones do anything other than provide structural support since as you point out, there's no obvious interconnect to the rest of the body as far as I know. It's well known, for example, that bone marrow is where blood cells mature before being released into the bloodstream, but how do they get to the bloodstream? Some kind of osmosis or diffusion? The same question would apply to hormones created by bone tissue...
(Score: 2, Informative) by NickM on Tuesday September 17 2019, @09:33PM
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(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 17 2019, @09:42PM
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/285666.php [medicalnewstoday.com]
So, they go from the marrow directly into a blood vessel, which is part of your circulatory system.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Wednesday September 18 2019, @12:40AM (2 children)
Thanks for the links, but what I still can’t quite picture in my mind is how that vascular structure inside the bone connects to the vascular structure outside the bone. I think of bones as typically having other types of tissue like muscle and cartilage sliding past it in the course of most any kind of movement, except maybe tendons. Are tendons perhaps the place where the vascular interface to the marrow is located?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @01:31AM (1 child)
> I think of bones as typically having other types of tissue like muscle and cartilage sliding past it in the course of most any kind of movement,
Au contraire, think about getting the meat off a chicken or beef bone, even after cooking. Layers of soft tissue are well attached to the bones in many places.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Wednesday September 18 2019, @01:22PM
I think that the adhesion you're talking about is a result of cooking. Feel the muscles of your upper arm or thigh along the middle of the bone. Living tissue behaves differently.
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Wednesday September 18 2019, @12:18PM
Ever broken a bone or had surgery (bone marrow donation, for example)?
Clavicle (collar bones), not much pain.
Ribs, femur (thigh bone), MAJOR pain.
Nerves go more places than are usually considered.