Why is there serotonin in snake venom if that chemical is the chemical that makes us happy?
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Serotonin doesn’t “make us happy”, it’s a neurotransmitter. It helps digestion by activating smooth muscle, it can cause intestinal distress, it can cause cramps, and causes intense pain if injected into the skin by causing the smooth muscle around your blood vessels to contract. All
Your body repurposes the same chemicals for multiple uses.
Serotonin is used in the brain to modulate your mood, but it’s also used in the circulatory system to control blood vessel constriction and blood clotting.
The snake doesn’t much care about your mood, but it does want to blow up your circulatory system with a huge dose of chemicals that interfere with normal behavior.
Serotonin isn’t a “happy chemical,” it’s a signalling molecule.
Think of it as a green light. When you’re driving your car, it means go! When you’re looking at your computer, it means on. When you’re looking at Christmas decorations, it means Christmas decorations. Context is just as important as the signal itself. (In this case, context means the receptors and the end organ/neural networks utilizing the signal)
Venom is evolved from an animals stomach acids or saliva (varies), and serotonin is already heavily involved in digestion for most (if not all) animals. The majority of it is even produced by symbiotic bacteria that grows in our digestive systems.
Serotonin is there because it was already there before the snake started using it as venom.
Serotonin itself controls a lot of things, but most relevantly muscle contractions in your digestive system. So when the snake bites you it causes your muscles to contract, causing pain and moderate debilitation.
Remember, a snakes goal with its venom is to escape, not to kill you, so giving you really bad cramps in whatever limb it’s bitten is actually a pretty decent way to go about that.
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