Intro to Neuropharmacology

Question 1

What can drugs that affect the CNS do?

Answer 1

• selectively relieve pain and reduce fever
• suppress disordered movement
• induce sleep or arousal, reduce appetite and allay the tendency to vomit
• treat anxiety, depression, mania or schizophrenia

Question 2

What is neuropharmacology?

Answer 2

the use of drugs to treat CNS conditions

Question 3

What can excessive use of drugs lead to?

Answer 3

• physical dependence
• toxic side effects e.g. lethal overdose

Question 4

What does the mouse brain have?

Answer 4

a very prominent olfactory bulb

Question 5

What are the 3 major divisions of the brain and what do they each contain?

Answer 5

• forebrain – telencephalon and diencephalon
• midbrain – mesencephalon
• hindbrain – metencephalon and myelencephalon

Question 6

What does the corpus callosum do?

Answer 6

connect the 2 brain hemispheres

Question 7

Where does decussation take place?

Answer 7

the brainstem

Question 8

What are the 4 structural properties of a neuron?

Answer 8

• nucleus
• dendrites
• axon
• myelin

Question 9

What are dendrites?

Answer 9

spiny branch-like structures that extend from the soma important in neural transmission

Question 10

What is an axon?

Answer 10

long cylindrical extension of the cell body that conducts electrical charge from the cell body to axon terminals

Question 11

What are the 4 main cells of the CNS?

Answer 11

• neurons
• astrocytes
• oligodendrocytes
• microglia

Question 12

What do neurons do?

Answer 12

transmit nerve signals to and from the brain at up to 200mph

Question 13

What are the 4 roles of astrocytes?

Answer 13

• biochemical support of neurons and other cell types
• support of endothelial cells → form BBB
• repair and scarring process
• guidance cues for growing neurons/axons during brain development

Question 14

What do oligodendrocytes do?

Answer 14

produce myelin

Question 15

What are microglia?

Answer 15

the immune cells of the CNS

Question 16

When are APs formed?

Answer 16

when a stimulus causes the cell membrane to depolarise past the threshold of excitation, causing all sodium ion channels to open

Question 17

How do APs travel down the axon?

Answer 17

as the membrane of the axon depolarises and repolarises

Question 18

What are nodes of Ranvier?

Answer 18

gaps in the myelin along the axons that contain sodium and potassium ion channels and allow the AP to travel quickly down the axon by jumping from one node to the next

Question 19

What does the BBB do?

Answer 19

help block harmful substances such as toxins and bacteria, from entering the brain

Question 20

What is the BBB?

Answer 20

a highly selective permeability barrier that separates the circulating blood from the brain extracellular fluid in the CNS

Question 21

What forms the BBB?

Answer 21

capillary endothelial cells connected by tight junctions

Question 22

What does the BBB allow?

Answer 22

• passage of water, some gases and lipid soluble molecules by passive diffusion
• selective transport of molecules such as glucose and amino acids that are crucial to neural function

Question 23

What parts of the brain do not have a BBB?

Answer 23

the circumventricular organs