perpetualdawn
Bluelighter
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- Nov 20, 2013
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Are there any explanations for this?
N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | thegreenhand
sekio said:Well, it's not just serotonin, there are also diverse types of receptors for other major neurotransmitters: GABA, acetylcholine, glutamate, dopamine, norepinephrine and adrenaline, etc.
A classic example is 5-HT1A and 5-HT2A receptors on cortical pyramidal neurons. 5-HT2A produces a long-lasting facilitation of excitation, and 5-HT1A inhibits firing with a shorter time-course. So when serotonin is applied experimentally it tends to inhibit the neurons first and then produces a longer-lasting increase in excitability. This may help to confine pyramidal neuron activity within a specific window. And serotonin has higher affinity for 5-HT1A than for 5-HT2A, which means that it is more likely to have an inhibitory effect than an excitatory modulatory effect. That is probably a good thing because it would tend to restrain the excitatory response to serotonin.
Thank you for your answers, I've learned a lot here.
Figured as much, but thought I'd ask about serotonin as a case study.
By "confine pyramidal neuron activity within a specific window" do you mean that the this is a mechanism by which the neuron is confined to fire within only a certain window of excitement? So if there's too little or too much serotonin excitement, it won't fire? Or is it more like a time window? Or both. Just want to check if I'm understanding this.