Neuroscience deals with the structure and function of the nervous system and its components in biological organisms.
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2answers
119 views
Physiological indicators of happiness and well being
If I understand it correctly, levels of serotonin in the brain can indicate if a person is happy. What other physiological measures indicate happiness or well being for a humans?
I am looking for ...
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2answers
13 views
What is in the space between neurons in a brain?
When neuron animations are displayed, there are frequently seen neurons, axons arranged in a lattice with a lot of empty space between. I'm interested if there is indeed empty space in the brain, or ...
3
votes
1answer
49 views
Why does it hurt more when you touch a nerve directly?
I am not a biologist nor know much about biology (so please explain in layman's terms) however I have always been curious as to why this is.
What causes the difference in pain between touching an ...
3
votes
1answer
53 views
Which Receptors are Involved in the antidepressant effects of SSRIs?
From what I've read the major receptor subtypes involved in the antidepressant effects of SSRIs are:
5-HT1A
5-HT2C
5-HT3
5-HT6
Please cite journal articles to back up your claims, I don't want any ...
5
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0answers
62 views
Pharmacologically, can tricyclic antidepressants have a side-effect profile similar to neuroleptics?
Torticollis (wryneck, cervical dystonia) is a neurologic movement disorder causing involuntary muscle spasms in the neck. Often, neuroleptics can cause such a side effect. I'm wondering if this ...
5
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0answers
70 views
How reversible is DAT upregulation from long-term ADHD medication use?
A mechanism for ADHD stimulant medication tolerance has now been found. See http://neurosciencenews.com/adhd-medication-patient-brains-adapt-dat/.
Here's the thing though: what exactly is the ...
4
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0answers
44 views
What light intensity determines the start/end of a photoperiod in humans?
I'm reading this article, which discusses the influence of Long Photoperiod (LP) and Short Photoperiod (SP) on melatonin production:
HIOMT drives the photoperiodic changes in the amplitude of the ...
3
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0answers
48 views
How does the eugeroic modafinil work?
How does the drug, modafinil (Provigil), exert its eugeroic (wakefulness-promoting) effects? I've read that it works by increasing dopamine and histamine concentrations in the CNS and by serving as a ...
3
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0answers
70 views
Why do the brains of cocaine-users shrink faster than the brains of non-cocaine users?
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/04/cocaine-may-age-the-brain.html?rss=1
Cocaine-dependent individuals showed a significantly greater-than-normal age-related decline in gray matter in ...
3
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0answers
84 views
If D1 receptors stimulate adenylate cyclase (through GPCRs) and D2 receptors inhibit it, then why do mutations in both have similar effects?
D1 and D2 both refer to specific types of dopamine receptors.
I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that the D1 receptors are in regions different from D2 receptors.
I know that adenylate ...
2
votes
0answers
43 views
Why is saltatory conduction faster than continuous conduction?
How does spacing apart sodium and potassium channels allow the action potential to travel faster down the axon? This is the reason always cited for saltatory conduction and myelination, but my mental ...
2
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0answers
29 views
How long does Lentivirus take to express in vivo mouse neurons?
Does anyone know how long it takes for a standard Lentivirus vector to express its genes (under a strong promoter such as CAG, CB7, etc.), after injection into the brain of a mouse?
By hearsay I ...
2
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0answers
55 views
Why Do Nerve Signals Get Crossed?
First off, I don't know if this is a normal healthy thing to occur. There have been many times where I have an itch on say my arm and I scratch it, only to feel the scratching elsewhere on my body. I ...
2
votes
0answers
48 views
Why do antidepressants have a delayed onset of action?
Why do antidepressants take so long to reach efficacy? I've read of theories about it perhaps being due to the strength of negative feedback via serotonergic and adrenergic autoreceptors during the ...
2
votes
0answers
50 views
In scuba diving, are nitrogen narcosis and high pressure nervous syndrome the same thing?
In training for scuba diving, they tell you that when you're bellow 100 ft or so you have to watch out for changes in mental state that resemble drunkenness. The cause of these mental disturbances is ...
2
votes
0answers
115 views
Are inflammation and anxiety connected?
I've been reading a curious paper about the use of cannabis, and one of the passages piqued my interest:
There’s also been a lot of work done on another constituent of
marijuana, cannabinoid, ...
1
vote
0answers
17 views
Hippocampal regulation of hypothalamus
What is the difference between CA1-CA4 hippocampal subfields and dentate gyrus (DG) in negative regulation of hypothalamus? I`ve found only evidence that GR expression is more in CA1-2 and DG, while ...
1
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0answers
63 views
Does sexual arousal inhibit functions of prefrontal cortex in human females as well as males?
I've read somewhere, that when a human male experiences sexual arousal, his prefrontal cortex and, hence, his ability to reason and make rational decisions, is being heavily inhibited. Sounds pretty ...
1
vote
0answers
17 views
Which Receptors are involved in Psychedelia/Psychosis?
Which receptors are involved in Psychedelia/Psychosis? I know that the 5-HT2A, 5-HT3, D2, κ-opioid and NMDA receptors are likely involved in psychosis.
1
vote
0answers
35 views
The relationship between the currents of intracellular and extracellular ions of a cell
In a cell, assume that only sodium, potassium, chloride and calcium ions can cross the membrane and their currents are: $I_{Na}$, $I_{K}$, $I_{Cl}$ and $I_{Ca}$, across the whole membrane. There is ...
1
vote
0answers
30 views
Does Dorsal Raphe Nuclei firing pattern change in response to voluntary breathing?
I'm reading this paper, which discusses how Serotonin may be involved in motor functions of mammals: 5-HT and motor control: a hypothesis .
The paper includes the following diagram of the Dorsal ...
1
vote
0answers
69 views
What triggers creative thought in humans?
Creativity, innovation and ideation. Is there something in the brain that makes the brain think that way, as opposed to "normal baseline". What triggers creative thought in humans?
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0answers
70 views
Why is membrane potential not zero at equilibrium?
For the squid giant axon, the membrane potential computed by the Goldman equation is -60mV. And the Nernst potentials are (the differences between the K+ and the Na+'s Nernst potential and the ...
1
vote
0answers
39 views
Text/resource with information on all skeletal muscles and their motor units
Something analogous to an encyclopedia on baseball players with a list of all thier stats would be ideal.
I'm not looking for just generic muscle names, locations and illustrations.
Good answers ...
0
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0answers
8 views
Does brain activity generate heat gradients in the brain?
I'm reading this article on guiding axon growth using temperature gradient, and it mentions that the trajectory of growth of neuron connections can be influenced by temperature gradients as little as ...
0
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0answers
14 views
Have there been any mechanisms proposed for normalization in probabilistic population codes?
I heard a talk recently by Dora Angelaki about multi-sensory integration. Part of the talk was about bayesian inference with multiple noisy sources of information. I know that there has been a lot of ...
0
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0answers
19 views
Carrying or packaging capacity of SAD B19 dG rabies virus
I'm wondering about the carrying capacity also referred to packaging capacity or loading capacity (how many base pairs can be packed efficiently into virions) of the pseudotyped rabies virus SAD-dG as ...
