Chemical release
For those interested in neurology, each emotional system is built around different major neurotransmitters and combinations of them in their individual circuitry.‘Fear’, for example, is typified by the release of nor-adrenalin in its circuits in the brain, while the ‘Play’ system is about the release of warm and fuzzy opiates.The ‘Care’ system is about the ‘love hormone’ oxytocin, and the ‘Seeking’ system prompts the release of dopamine, the same neurostransmitter that makes you feel good when jogging or exercising, behaviours which can all too easily become addictive because of that resulting good feeling. It’s important to note that just the performance of those behaviours is what releases the dopamine, not a successful result, which makes them all nicely resistant to failure. This is really important for a hunter like a cat, who may have to perform his inbuilt ‘eye/stalk/ chase/pounce/ kill’ behaviour sequences many unsuccessful times before he finally catches a mouse and kills it.
When you win the race, or catch a mouse, you also experience a release of serotonin, which engenders that feeling of success and happiness on top of the contentment of just having run the race or tried to find the mouse.
The key thing here is that it is the balance of having the opportunity to perform the associated behaviours in all three of these positive emotional systems that ultimately produces a content cat, not an imbalance where, for example, a cat might be loved and cuddled endlessly in his ‘Care’ system, but never played with, and never having any or enough opportunity to express his exploratory reward seeking behaviours. It’s also important to note that this isn’t about actually catching and killing mice, it is about expressing the behaviours that facilitate that possibility.
All of this logically leads us to a more refined consideration of what a cat is able to do in the environment that it lives in. Now we understand our cats emotional systems, in part two, we will use this framework to analyse how the lifestyle we provide cats fulfils our cats and ultimately serves their well-being.