Synaptic Transmission Flashcards
Membrane potential at rest?
- polarized -70mV
- positive on outside
- negative on inside
Depolarization?
- Na flows inside and charges become reversed
- positive charge on inside
What do local anesthetics do?
- block entrance of Na into cell, causing it be inactive
- sensory: pain transmission blocked
- motor: muscle paralyzed
Repolarization?
- K flows out of the cell and charges return
- positive outside
- negative inside
Absolute refractory period?
- membrane is completely inactive
- another stimulus has no effect
Relative refractory period?
- membrane is excitable
- needs stimulus above threshold
Na-K pumps?
- actively pump Na out of the cell, K into the cell
- against concentration gradients
Single cell gradation?
- no gradation
- all or none response
Nerve conduction gradation?
- each individual axon has different threshold
- full nerve has graded response
- AP height can increase as stimulus strength increases
- limit reached when threshold of all axons making nerve have been reached
- potential for increased nerve conductance
Types of ion channels?
- Non gated: passive, always open
- Gated: active, always open
- independent from each other
- open channels are activated= increased conductance
- closed channels are inactive= decreased conductance - Voltage gated:
- voltage sensitive
- operation related to membrane potential inside cell
- shifts open
- Na, K, Ca
- Ca and beta blockers can slow HR - Chemical gated:
- ligand gated or receptor gated
- operation dependent upon interaction of biological chemical (NTs) with receptors
- ligands: ACh or GABA
- Chloride
Channelopathies?
- diseases caused by genetic defects in ion channels
- some types of arrhythmias and convulsive disorders (epilepsy)
Duration of action potential?
- 15 msec
- all or none
Saltatory conduction?
- signal jumps from small unmyelinated regions called Nodes of Ranvier to another node
- pathway is myelinated
- AP propagates
Non propagated action potential?
- nonmyelinated
- no nodes of ranvier
- signal is slow and weakly transferred as it moves away from origin
- occur at junction of nerve terminal and dendrite
- Multiple Sclerosis (clinical demyelination)
Autoreceptors?
- function as part of negative feedback loop
- when activated, decreases amount of NT released into synapse
- prevents over stimulation of post synaptic membrane
- homeostasis mechanism
- excessive stimulation of post synaptic membrane causes down regulation and physical dependence
What type of effect is a chloride channel?
-inhibitory
Spacial summation?
- multiple presynaptic terminals located at different release NT on one postsynaptic membrane
- release at exact same time
- each change of 1mV can be summated to 15 mV, cumulative effect
Temporal summation?
-rapid repetitive stimulation from one presynaptic terminal can release sufficient NT to trigger post synaptic potential
Monosynaptic vs polysynaptic transmission?
- Mono
- signal across just one synapse
- very rapid (throw football from point A to B)
- reflex responses - Poly
- transmit signals across multiple synapses
- takes much longer (students passing football along)
- can be impaired
What you need in order to classify a chemical as a neurotransmitter?
- must be in nerve terminal
- has capacity to synthesize substances and accumulate substance
- capacity to store substance
- released upon nerve stimulation
- causes change at postsynaptic membrane
- process to inactive substance
- catabolic enzymes
- reuptake mechanism
How many directions can a synapse travel?
- one direction
- presynaptic to postsynaptic
Duration of postsynaptic potentials vs time NT can act on postsynaptic membrane?
- PSP: 15 msec
- NT: hundreds of msec, secs, mins, hours