PSYC 2700 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Neurotransmitter Receptor, Axon Terminal, Neural Coding
17 Mar 2015
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Document Summary
All information is carried by action potentials but not all action potentials carry information. In most neurons there are a small number of spontaneous action potentials produced. Cortical activity requires a significant energy resource (atp) Neuronal processes that make information processing, communication and coding possible cannot be concurrently active throughout the cortex because there"s only enough atp available to run about 2% of cortex at any point. Mechanisms must be in place to be able to rapidly switch among cortical regions. Neurotransmitters (nt): chemicals produced a stores within a neuron. Nt is released in the synaptic cleft when action potentials reaches the pre-synaptic membrane. Nts diffuse across the synapses and binds to a post-synaptic receptor. When nt binds to receptor sites on the post-synaptic membrane the binding process changes the membrane ionic permeability. Synapses: tiny gaps between neurons in which neurons communicate by sending signals to each other.
