Psychology 2220A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Serotonin Receptor Agonist, Dopamine Agonist, Neurotransmitter Receptor

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2220A/B
• Professor: Jody Culham

Document Summary

Drugs can effect many presynaptic processes and postsynaptic processes. Nt: synthesized, stored, released, bind with receptors, broken down, taken up, recycled. Key idea: drugs can act at any stage: e. g. Parkinson disease: give dopamine agonist (l-dopa = precursor of dopamine) Inject dopamine itself but it cannot cross bbb but l dopa can: more l dopa = more synthesized to dopamine = facilitates neurotransmission of dopamine, e. g. Lsd + serotonin: agonists fitting same lock on postsynaptic receptor. Lsd is similar in chemical structure to serotonin: e. g. Ssri: antidepressants: serotonin selective reuptake inhibitor, nt can get taken back up into synaptic cleft but if this is inhibited, more nt in. It does not affect other neurotransmitters, only serotonin cleft = ssris are serotonin agonists: no reuptake = more neurotransmitter to bind receptors = greater effect, facilitate the effect of the presynpatic neuron = agonist. Effects of drugs on person depends on how its consumed.