CRIM 402 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Monoamine Oxidase, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Essential Amino Acid
13 May 2016
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Document Summary
If and when any of these imbalances are conclusively linked to antisocial behavior, it is probable that they too can be treated. It is the chemical ones in which we are interested: at a chemical synapse, there is a very narrow gap, called a synaptic cleft, that separates the transmitting or presynaptic cell from the receiving or postsynaptic cell. An electrical signal cannot span the gap, but a chemical signal can. So the electrical signal in the rst cell is converted into a chemical messenger (or signal) so it can travel over the cleft. It is then converted back into an electrical signal in the receiving cell so the receiving cell knows what the message is. The chemical messengers used here are called neurotransmitters. *this only describes communications between two cells: the chemicals that do the transmitting are called neurotransmitters, and they are stored in sacs called synaptic vesicles. Many neurotransmitters are known, including amino acids and biogenic amines.
