How do neurotransmitters work? How do brains receive signals to do this and that?
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How does dopamine, adrenaline, and glutamic acid work?
What are the differences between those three chemicals?
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And more importantly, how does a neuron pick up a signal from a neurotransmitter and emit “happiness” or “rushed” feelings?
In: 4
Nervous system – Central and Peripheral
Central nervous system (CNS) – brain and spinal cord
Brain – made of neurons – a neuron have different parts – cell body (area which receives signals) and axon (which sends signal away to the next neuron)
End of an axon is called – synaptic knob
so synaptic knob + receiving part of the next neuron (the cell body of next neuron) together form a junction called a synapse.
Neurotransmitters work at synapses. Synapses can also occur between a neuron and muscle(peripheral nervous system) called the neuro-muscular junction.
Neurotransmitters are proteins(mostly).
Now brain is made up of neurons and it has different areas that control different things. All these areas are made of neurons but some of them produce a certain type of neurotransmitter more than others.
So for eg an area of midbrain is made up of neurons that produce most of the dopamine, from this area a lot of axons (from above) move in different directions to other areas of the brain hence forming certain pathways.
Pathway of an electrical signal in brain goes like this-
(THIS IS VERY GROSS OVERSIMPLIFICATION)
Sensory organs (eyes, ears, skin,etc) and other chemicals and structures in the body – peripheral neuron-pathway via nerves – spinal cord – brain – brain registers the input – processing- pathway via neurons- spinal cord – pathways nerves again- to wherever the action needs to be done via the brain
The actual signal creation (electric current) is due to different charged ions going inside and outside the membrane and their concentration and it generating action potentials (current or signal) which is propagated through the axon to the next neuron via a layer of fat covering the axon (mylein sheathe) (AGAIN VERY OVERSIMPLIFIED BUT ELI5 so), I can explain in detail if you want.
Now once the dopaminergic(dopamine producing) neuron gets the signal – it produces dopamine – it reaches the synaptic knob
Due to the signal/current, and using sodium and calcium at the knob – dopamine molecule gets released into the synapse and taken up by the cell body of next neuron (via receptors for that specific neurotransmitter so dopamine)
And the same thing happens until the said dopamine reaches the areas of brain responsible for euphoria and mood (parts of pre frontal cortex and amygdala, etc) where it causes the effect of euphoria etc
Different neurotransmitters do different things
Dopamine – reward, pleasure, mood, movement (excitatory neurotransmitter)
Adrenaline – acts mainly on peripheral nervous system – causes increased heart rate, the whole flight or flight thing, etc (excitatory neurotransmitter)
Glutamic acid – major excitatory neurotransmitter for arousal, wakefulness, etc
GABA – inhibitory neurotransmitter – to stop the neurons from firing the above so as to stop the signal
they are not singled out like that, all of them perform multiple functions but ELI5 so
I think is too much already lol. Feel free to ask more questions 🙂
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