Psych - Unit 3 AOS1

How do neurons communicate with one another

A neurotransmitter is released from the terminal button of the presynaptic neuron and travels across the neural synapse to receptors on the dendrites of the postsynaptic neuron where it has an inhibitory or excitatory effect

What is a neurotransmitter?

A chemical substance that carries messages to other neurons, cells or muscles. This either stimulates a other neurons into firing an action potential and performing a function, or it inhibits them from firing an action potential and performing the function.

What will happen if there is not enough GABA in the CNS?

Neurons could fire uncontrollably throughout the brain leading to potential seizures and other problems such as feelings of anxiety

What is a neuromodulator?

A chemical substance that effects the transmission of neurotransmitters between the neurons by changing the reactivity of receptors and making them more or less likely to be receptive to a particular neurotransmitter. Neuromodulators can affect a group of neurons at once.

Roles of dopamine

Gives the feeling of pleasure to reinforce behaviour, regulates mood, motivation, plays an important role in reward pathway. Has both an excitatory and inhibitory effects

Reward pathway

A neural pathway that is activated by rewarding or reinforcing stimuli. It controls our response to natural rewards like food, so plays an important role in motivation. When exposed to rewarding stimuli, brain releases dopamine along this reward pathway, the more dopamine released for a certain stimuli, the more that stimuli is viewed as a reward. When we first see a stimulus we desire or anticipate, dopamine travels through the reward pathway telling us to repeat what we did to get the reward again.