Neurotransmitter Synthesis

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From the course by The University of Chicago

Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life

874 ratings

The University of Chicago

Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life

874 ratings

Learn how the nervous system produces behavior, how we use our brain every day, and how neuroscience can explain the common problems afflicting people today. We will study functional human neuroanatomy and neuronal communication, and then use this information to understand how we perceive the outside world, move our bodies voluntarily, stay alive, and play well with others.

From the lesson

Neural Communication + Embodied Emotion

Neurons are the cells of the nervous system responsible for communicating, relaying, and integrating information. Neurons "talk" to other neurons through a special type of language that involves electrical signaling within individual neurons, and the use of chemical compounds known as neurotransmitters to communicate between neurons. In this module, you will learn more about how a neuron functions at rest, how information is relayed within a neuron, and how neurons relay information to other neurons or target tissues. In the second half of this module, you will be learning about how the body and emotions work together to produce our everyday emotional experiences. We will look at the enteric nervous system and learn how to discern whether the sympathetic or parasympathetic system is impacting our current emotional state.

Neurotransmitter Synthesis5:21

Neurotransmitter Release5:46

Clostridial Toxins: Botox6:09

Signal Termination7:02

Metabotropic Receptors7:08

Wrap-Up: Neurocommunication2:11

Meet the Instructors

Peggy Mason
Professor
Neurobiology

[MUSIC]

Okay, so we left

off with action potential.

So we've got a message going from one end of a cell to another end of a

cell, and now we're going to get that message

across to another cell through something called a synapse.

But the this like, so, so getting the action potential is like

I have breathed out all this air, and now I just have to form

my lips to, to make sound, but in the case of the neuron.

This neuron is obviously not talking in sound.

It's talking in chemistry.

It's talking in things like neurotransmitters.

And neurotransmitters, are a list of, or a number of molecules.

They serve other functions in the body, but

they also serve very critical functions for the

nervous system as neurotransmitters, as the things that

that communicate from one neuron to another neuron.

And what we're going to look at right now,

is how neurotransmitters are made and how they're packaged.

So this is a drawing of a cell, here's the cell body, the nucleus

with the DNA, here are some mitochondria, this is the powerhouse of the cell.

The endoplasmic reticulum, which is essentially the

manufacturing centre of the cell where proteins

are made, and then we have an axon which leads down to a synaptic terminal.

And this synaptic terminal has these entities

here, which are called synaptic vesicles

and they're small little, organelles.

They're little vesicles, they, they're made of a

membrane, just like the, the cell is, has a,

has a cell membrane, these vesicles have a vesicular

membrane, and if we look at one of these.

So it has a membrane, remember that the membrane looks

something like this but we're not going to draw that all.

So here's the membrane, and inside here is neurotransmitter.

Is a, is a neurotransmitter.

And, the neurotransmitter can be any number

of of a number of different molecules.

Here are just a few of them Glutamate, GABA, Serotonin, Dopamine, Acetylcholine.

There's a more complete list that you can see and the

only other thing I want to add is, why is this important?

Why is it important?

Well, first of all, it's important that the neurotransmitters are packaged

in, is vesicles and that'll be important in, in a moment.

The second thing that's important about this is that we can use this.

We can use the synthesis of a neurotransmitter

as a, as a, as a therapeutic tool.

So, for instance Dopamine is missing in Parkinsons disease.

It's not that dopamine isn't made per say, that's there's a problem with making it.

It's that the cells that make it die.

So, or, or a group of the cells that do

make Dopamine die, and so what do you do about that?

Well it turns out that there's something called Mass

Effect which means, that you take the starting chemical.

The, the, the substrate.

What we call the substrate and then through a series of enzymatic

Processes reaction through a series of enzymatic reactions, we end up with a

neurotransmitter and in the case of Dopamine,

in Parkinson's there is lack of Dopamine and what happ,

what do we do to treat in most people Parkinson's.

We give them the substrate, and so that is what Sinemet

which is also in, in other countries called Parcopa.

so, th-, these are drugs that provide a lot

of this, and even if only a little bit of this gets made, much less

than what you start with, it's more than what the, the person

has, and it enables them, it, it alleviates their symptoms of Parkinson's.

So you flood the system with substrate, and the goal is

to get a little bit of that neurotransmitter out of the system.

Okay.

So that's how we're going to speak what's coming

out of the neurons mouth, so to speak.

Is not sound, but neurotransmitter.

Neurotransmitter that is packaged in vesicles, and in

the next segment we are going too see how.

How it actually gets out of the mouth.

[MUSIC]

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