PSYC 2030 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Candace Pert, Solomon H. Snyder, Radioactive Tracer
29 May 2018
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PSYC 2030 Lecture 16 Notes
Introduction
Neurotransmitter
• Later explore neurotransmitter influences on hunger and thinking, depression and
euphoria, addictions and therapy.
• For o, let’s glipse ho eurotrasitters ifluee our otios ad our eotios.
• A particular brain pathway may use only one or two neurotransmitters and particular
neurotransmitters may affect specific behaviors and emotions
• But neurotransmitter systes do’t operate i isolatio
• They interact, and their effects vary with the receptors they stimulate.
• Acetylcholine (ACh), which is one of the best-understood neurotransmitters, plays a role
in learning and memory.
• In addition, it is the messenger at every junction between motor neurons (which carry
iforatio fro the rai ad spial ord to the ody’s tissues) ad skeletal usles.
• When ACh is released to our muscle cell receptors, the muscle contracts
• If ACh transmission is blocked, as happens during some kinds of anesthesia and with
some poisons, the muscles cannot contract and we are paralyzed.
• Candace Pert and Solomon Snyder (1973) made an exciting discovery about
neurotransmitters when they attached a radioactive tracer to morphine, showing where
it as take up i a aial’s rai.
• Are certain neurotransmitters found only in specific places?
• How do they affect our moods, memories, and mental abilities?
• Can we boost or diminish these effects through drugs or diet?
• The morphine, an opiate drug that elevates mood and eases pain, bound to receptors in
areas linked with mood and pain sensations.
• But hy ould the rai hae these opiate reeptors?
• Why would it have a chemical lock, unless it also had a natural key to open it?
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