Scout Brodsky

5/5/2018
Period 6
Ms. Keilty - 7th Grade Science

Integrated Project: Disease/Disorder Profile

I am Dr. Brodsky, and I specialize in ophthalmology. I chose this speciality because I have

always been fascinated by eyes, though they kind of freak me out. I study diseases and disorders

that affect the eyes and the brain, controlling what we see, and making decisions based on that. In

the nervous system, ​your spinal cord receives information from the body. It is responsible the nerves

that control all your movements. Your brain receives information directly from your eyes, as well as

from the rest of your

body. It uses this

information to help you

react, remember, think

and plan. I am studying

the three different types of love: attraction, attachment, and lust. They affect how we see the people

around us, and release specific hormones that control how we behave, and act. In this report, it will

describe attraction as a physical magnetism towards an individual. There are also people who don’t

experience sexual, or romantic attraction, some are mental disorders, others are not. HSDD, or

Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, is similar to asexuality. People with HSDD do not experience

sexual attraction, or express anxiety towards sex in general. It is unlike asexuality because people

with HSDD have a deficiency of gray matter in their brains, causing their lack of sexual attraction. Not

all asexuals have this disorder, and not all people with HSDD are asexual.
 Men and HSDD Women and HSDD

● Men who think that marriage is very

important

● Women who think that marriage is very

important

● Men who are "very" committed to their

relationships

● Women who are "very" committed to their relationships

● Men who are "almost certain" their current relationship will be permanent.

● Women who are "almost certain" their current relationship will be permanent.

● Men who are "not at all" committed to their relationship

● Women who are "not at all" committed to their relationship

● Men who are "certain" their current relationship will not be permanent

● Women who are "certain" their current relationship will not be permanent

​The different types love don’t have much to do with cells, but they do have a huge role with

hormones. They say that love is all in your head, but it really has a lot to do with chemistry…

Attraction: ​You know when you see a ​nice ​looking person, and your palms get sweaty, your

ability to make a sentence falters, and your heart races a mile a minute? It happens to the best of us.
What’s going on inside? During attraction, high levels of dopamine, a chemical that leads to reward

motivated behavior, and norepinephrine, a chemical similar to dopamine, gives you a rush of

adrenaline.

Lust: ​For a quick rundown of what lust is, turn to the wise words of India Foxworth, “desire for

sex w/ someone sexy” When this is happening, testosterone, usually defined as male, and estrogen,

female, are released. This causes increased libido, also known as sexual desire.

Attachment: ​This love is long term, platonic love, or love between family members. Like

attraction, dopamine is released, and so is oxytocin. Oxytocin is nicknamed, “the cuddle hormone”

and with good reason, it stimulates feeling of calmness and closeness. It plays a role in

breastfeeding, babies in general, it lowers stress, lowers drug craving, and in some it increases

sexual arousal. In addition to this, oxytocin gives us that feeling of doing anything for the ones we

love.

So, what do all these crazy, wacko hormones do to us? A lot. When you see that nice looking

person I mentioned earlier, butterflies in your stomach can be a pretty common symptom. No, there

aren’t small winged insects flying around in your stomach, it’s your brain. Norepinephrine rushes a

whole bunch of adrenaline to your brain, which causes your lack of appetite. Your stomach isn’t used

to your appetite just taking off, and that is what causes the metaphorical winged creatures to take

flight. As I am sure you have experienced when having a crush, or being in love, you want to be

around that person more. This has science behind it! Dopamine, is another hormone released during

attraction, and it can cause you to do crazy things to see your aesthetically pleasing person.

Dopamine switches the gears from emotion motivated decisions, to reward and goal motivated

decisions. When you see your A.P.P.(aesthetically pleasing person) your brain gets a surge of

dopamine, and like drugs, you get addicted. Your brain craves this hormone, and now believes that

they are the only way you are going to get dopamine and be happy. (Cartagenes 2014)
 Just my type? Some people argue that they don’t have a “type” when it comes to attraction.

Science proves that false. What kind of faces you grow up with and have a positive experience with,

will tend to be your type. This is why people who are more into Asian things such as K-pop or anime,

then they will categorize Asian faces more attractive. Many people connotate, genetic with your type,

but again, false. We can speculate that social economic, and environmental factors don’t have much

to do with attraction.

In contrast, there are factors that influence HSDD. Physical factors include, sexual abuse, and

emotional trauma. Medical aspects include, a deficiency of testosterone or other hormones (Virtual

Medical Center 2015.) If one is raised in an extremely religious household, one that discourages

sexual activity except for procreation, can cause shame in sexual activity. Thus, resulting in HSDD or

some other sexual dysfunction disorder.

There is one treatment option out there for HSDD, Flibanserin. This is a small pink pill,

specially designed for women with HSDD. Patients are instructed to take 100mg before bedtime

everyday. The monthly cost is $830. Unfortunately, Flibanserin is only accessible to women suffering

with HSDD, and no cure has been found for men.

I found it really interesting how chemicals played into the different forms of love, and how

behavior that we regularly do is all in your head. Something I researched on my own time, was the

fact that pupils dilate when seeing someone we love, or a potential mate. They dilate to make you

look more attractive to the potential mate, because the human mind perceives larger pupils as more

attractive. I first did a study on if this were true when given a verbal prompt:

Test Subject: Sapa Thai, Heterosexual

An Attractive Male Yes

An Unattractive Male No, in fact pupils shrunk

As we can see, the test was a success when given a verbal prompt. Next I decided to go forth

with a visual prompt by showing her pictures of a good looking celebrity Ms. Thai is attracted to like,

Hwang Hyunjin. I also wanted to see if her pupils would dilate when looking at a friend.

Test Subjects: Sapa Thai, with Jillian King and Hwang Hyunjin, Kang Daniel, and Jeon Jungkook as

prompts.

Prompt Dilation?

Hwang Hyunjin Yes

Kang Daniel Yes

Jeon Jungkook Yes

Jillian King Yes

This test was another success, for the last test, we know that larger pupils are more attractive,

so wouldn’t people love to be able to have their pupils dilate on command?

Test Subjects: Sapa Thai, Kira Valenci

Prompt Size of pupil Size of pupil

Nothing Normal Normal

Light, the sun Smaller Smaller by a small fraction

Darkness Way larger A bit larger than normal

In conclusion, we have seen how the size of pupils are affected in different scenarios and how

we can affect them ourselves. I would like to thank Ms. Thai, Mr. Hwang, Mr. Kang, Mr. Jeon, Ms.

King, and Ms. Valenci for helping me conduct these tests.

I predict that in the future there will be cures for men with HSDD, and cures for all sexual

dysfunction disorders. I am sure that in the hopefully near future this will be possible. Thank you for

taking the time to read my research paper!