Term
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Definition
| Swallowing a pill, liquid, etc. Drug follows path through esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, blood stream. |
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Term
| Oral (PO) administration strengths |
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Definition
| Strengths: Minimal infection risk, most often a known dose, controlled rate of absorption, no pain, available and convenient, lasts longer |
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Term
| Oral (PO) administration weaknesses |
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Definition
| Weaknesses: Reactions/nausea and sickness, slower breakdown (even slower with food), bad taste, possible placebo effect, drug might dissolve too |
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Term
| Sublingual administration |
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Definition
| Placing drug under tongue to be absorbed into highly vascular mucous membranes. |
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Term
| Sublingual administration strengths |
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Definition
| Strengths: Don’t need to swallow a pill (ideal for babies, unconscious, etc.), no first-pass metabolism*, avoid stomach acid and gastrointestinal or proteolytic enzymes, could potentially avoid nausea, vomiting (unless accidentally swallowed) |
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Term
| Sublingual administration weaknesses |
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Definition
| Weaknesses: Bad taste, accidental swallowing means drug is only partially absorbed, bitter and irritating to mouth, uncomfortable, hassle. *No first-pass metabolism means increased potency of what is absorbed—bypass the liver; faster absorption but not all is absorbed; higher bioavailability but varied. |
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Term
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Definition
| Drug placed in highly-vascular distal rectum. |
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Term
| Rectal administration strengths |
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Definition
| Strengths: No stomach problems or chronic nausea, no first-pass metabolism but straight to bloodstream, ideal for infants, babies, etc. |
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Term
| Rectal administration weaknesses |
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Definition
| Weaknesses: Discomfort, inconvenient, and other obvious weaknesses |
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Term
| Intramuscular administration |
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Definition
| injection into skeletal muscle tissue. The drug, depending on lipid-solubility, will eventually diffuse into the blood |
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Term
| Intramuscular administration strengths and weaknesses |
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Definition
| Strengths and Weaknesses: It will be slow-acting and long-lasting, which is ideal for some patients (i.e. when administering anti-psychotics that will stay with a person for a long time, to someone who is likely to forget to administer medication themselves). Intramuscular-oil injections may “hang out” in the muscle’s surrounding fat for a long time, delaying drug action. |
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Term
| Subcutaneous administration |
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Definition
| injection just under skin, typical for protein drugs like insulin, which is not psychoactive. |
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Term
| Subcutaneous administration strengths and weaknesses |
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Definition
| Strengths and Weaknesses: Subcutaneous injections are slow, steady, less painful than intramuscular, and good for allergy testing |
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Term
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Definition
| put on the skin, like a cream. |
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Term
| Topical administration strengths and weaknesses |
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Definition
| Strengths and Weaknesses: Convenient; it is easy to target locally, painless, slow-acting, and long lasting |
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Term
| Transdermal administration |
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Definition
| something like a patch, in which the drug is very slow and steady to act because it must first pass through thick, tough skin |
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Term
| Transdermal administration strengths and weaknesses |
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Definition
| Strengths and Weaknesses: Convenient; it is easy to target locally, painless, slow-acting, and long lasting |
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Term
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Definition
| Drug is placed in a device which is implanted inside an individual, allowing the drug to slowly release at a steady dose for approximately one month. |
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Term
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Definition
| Strengths: low maintenance, don’t have to worry about patients forgetting to take their medicine. Implantation is useful for those with schizophrenia who are likely to forget doses of medication or not return to doctor’s offices |
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Term
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Definition
| Weaknesses: invasive, cannot be easily removed if reaction occurs, devices can be destroyed in the body |
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Term
| Intravenous administration |
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Definition
| injection directly into a blood vessel. An injection into any vein will work the same as any other vein because all blood mixes together and goes to the same places. |
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Term
| Intravenous administration strengths |
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Definition
| Strengths: If administered by a skilled operator, an exact dose can be calculated easily. IV is quick-acting, requires no first-pass metabolism, delivers 100% of the substance into the blood, can be given continuously if needed, and has no taste. |
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Term
| Intravenous administration weaknesses |
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Definition
| Weaknesses: Higher risk of overdose if not done by professionals (therapeutically), leaves marks, takes skill to calculate the dosage, etc. Added costs of supplies over time can be expensive, needles can be painful, disposal is tricky and a hassle. Once drug is in blood stream, it cannot come back out if you wish to reverse the dosage immediately (in the case of a mistake). IV injections can damage veins and carry high infection and disease risks |
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Term
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Definition
| Administration by inhalation provides rapid absorption (as fast as IV) into bloodstream, but no known bioavailability (amount that’s actually entering the blood) |
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Term
| Inhalation strengths and weaknesses |
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Definition
| Strengths and Weaknesses: Not 100% of the inhaled drug is absorbed, but you can use the drug till your desired effect is reached. Absorption occurs once the drug-infused air reaches the alveolar air sacs, which are simply one-cell-thick, and tightly wrapped in one-cell-thick capillaries, across which the drug easily diffuses. However, these membranes are breakable and sensitive. The total surface area of all alveoli combined is huge, making absorption rapid and effective |
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Term
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Definition
| deal with how drugs move through the body—the paths they take before reaching the bloodstream, how they leave the bloodstream, and how long they stay in the body. |
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Term
| Where do drugs enter the body? |
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Definition
| This means entering the cardiovascular system, which circulates blood through the body including brain, heart, and lungs |
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Term
| Where are drugs broken down by enzymes? |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
| drugs that have actions at sites in the brain and “affect the perceptions, the mood, the way of thinking, and the behavior of a person.” |
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Term
| What drugs have action sites outside of the brain? |
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Definition
| For example, new antihistamines do not act in the brain, and therefore do not make you drowsy; they simply act on localized sites to clear up allergy symptoms. |
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Term
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Definition
| is the break-down of drugs that occurs when taken orally. This means the drug is first exposed to stomach acids, broken up, filtered by the enzymes of the liver, and then finally absorbed into the blood stream once it reaches the small intestine. By the time this absorption happens, the drug has already been altered to be, most likely, less potent. (This is not the case with all drugs—some are intentionally manufactured to become effective only after they have interacted with the components of first-pass metabolism.) |
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Term
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Definition
| are the original drug, before it is broken down by the liver. |
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Term
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Definition
| are the many different compounds that are created after the parent compound has been broken down. They may or may not be psychoactive. |
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Term
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Definition
| refers to drugs that can only be used by the body when dissolved in fat or oil. This has everything to do with which cells they can get into and affect, because most cell membranes are phospholipid bilayers (in essence, fat). If a drug can be absorbed in the fat of a cell membrane, it can enter the cell. However, it can also linger in other fat tissues and not take effect until it is eventually absorbed in the blood stream. |
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Term
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Definition
| Water-soluble drugs, or molecules, cannot diffuse as easily across most cell membranes, as water and oil are opposites. |
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Term
| Blood Brain Barrier (BBB): |
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Definition
| The brain is very drug-resistant. The BBB “blocks” many substances in the body’s blood supply from entering the brain’s blood supply (the two are continuous with one another, but not all things in the blood can flow to the brain), because the capillaries by which blood enters are much more tightly-bound. While capillaries elsewhere have fenestrations, or loose junctions/openings, the capillaries in the blood brain barrier are closed entirely. Drugs may only enter if they are lipid-soluble or if they qualify to “fit through a specific protein carrier/transporter. |
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Term
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Definition
| found in the brain and remove unwanted chemicals. |
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Term
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Definition
| The wall of the placenta, which separates a fetus’s blood from the mother’s, is very thin, and to enter this blood supply, substances must also be lipid-soluble or fit through a transporter protein to the fetus. However, since pregnancy is “designed” to supply the fetus with everything it needs through the mother’s blood, the placental barrier has many more transporters, meaning more substances are likely to fit into one. If a drug can enter the mother’s blood brain barrier, it is almost sure to enter the fetus’s blood supply and have the same effects. |
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Term
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Definition
| For a fetus, the mother’s blood and organ systems are doing the “work,” but once the fetus is born, it becomes a neonate whose organ systems must function on their own even though they are not yet fully developed |
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Term
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Definition
| is the breakdown or detoxification of drugs, and is a.k.a. “biotransformation,” which usually takes place by enzymes in the liver. The goal of all biotransformation is to make a substance water-soluble so it can be secreted (i.e. sweat, urine, etc.) |
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Term
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Definition
| amount of drug available to be used by body (what is left after first-pass metabolism). |
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Term
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Definition
| happens through the kidneys: Once water-soluble, the renal system filters the body’s water and excretes the wastes by urination |
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Term
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Definition
| drugs of this class have a half-life (blood levels decrease by .5 after every x amount of time. (Graph is a downward curve which flat-lines at end/bottom). For drugs of this order, the rule of thumb (rough estimate) is that after about four half-life accumulations, the blood levels have reached steady state. *This is for blood levels only, NOT the effects of the drug |
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Term
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Definition
| drugs of this class do not have a half-life—their levels are constantly falling once the peak blood level has been reached. (Graph is a straight downward slope; alcohol is an example) |
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Term
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Definition
| the effective dose for 50% of the population. More potent drugs will have lower ED50s than less potent drugs. |
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Term
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Definition
| The TD50 is the dose that causes toxic effects in 50% of the populations, for example nausea, headaches, shakiness, etc |
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Term
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Definition
| The LD50 is lethal although this is a difficult value to come by for many reasons. Each is defined by a specific factor (i.e. effective for 50% of people at relieving headaches, reducing anxiety, etc.) |
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Term
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Definition
| that amount between the effective dose and toxic dose. Drugs with small or narrow margins of safety are risky because prescribers have to worry about patients’ error and accuracy, whether or not they have any cognitive loss (must be able to remember to take the exact dose at the exact time), possible drug interactions, or suicidal patients if the drug is lethal in overdose. |
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Term
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Definition
| Drugs can either work by affecting an enzyme, binding to a receptor, or can “attack” a cell (damage or kill it). |
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Term
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Definition
| Receptors are special proteins that can bind to natural chemicals or chemicals that imitate natural chemical’s structures. |
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Term
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Definition
| Anything that binds to a receptor. |
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Term
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Definition
| The body’s natural binder (i.e. neurotransmitters) |
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Term
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Definition
| A drug that binds to a specialized receptor and causes the reaction a natural neurotransmitter should or does cause |
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Term
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Definition
| Blocker” or “inhibitor.” A substance that binds to a receptor and blocks others from binding there |
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Term
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Definition
| Blocks the receptor but has no action |
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Term
| Noncompetitive antagonist |
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Definition
| Binds to the cell and changes the structure of receptor so nothing can bind properly there. |
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Term
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Definition
| does not bind to a receptor, but makes it possible for a drug or neurotransmitter agonist to bind to a receptor, sometimes by blocking reuptake transporters so that more is available in the synapse |
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Term
| Why do Psychoactive effects differ from blood levels of the drug? |
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Definition
| generally, the bonds they form on receptors in the brain are weak, and their effects wear off while the body’s overall metabolism is still transforming the drug—metabolites can be circulating in the blood after the “feeling” is gone. |
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Term
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Definition
| occurs when the effects of one set dosage of a drug become less and less over time. |
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Term
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Definition
| occurs because the liver can make more enzymes, make more active forms of enzymes, or enzymes more specific to the drug you are “building up” tolerance to. This makes the effects and blood levels decrease faster because the enzymes are both more efficient and more numerous. |
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Term
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Definition
| because the neurons in the brain down regulate and become less sensitive. |
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Term
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Definition
| they share the same enzyme in the liver or the same receptors in the brain. |
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Term
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Definition
| opposite of tolerance—because you have used the drug in the past, the anticipation and associated paraphernalia introduced before administration actually increase the “effects” of the drug (some placebo effect may also be a factor) |
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Term
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Definition
| having the symptoms of withdrawal |
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Term
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Definition
| actual set of withdrawl symptoms |
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Term
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Definition
| “drug addiction”—know the checklist of criteria on page 28 and know the difference between these 3 key terms as well as the checklist of criteria for substance abuse. |
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Term
| What drugs cause addiction? |
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Definition
| Drugs that cause craving (need/want) cause addiction |
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Term
| Know your basic neuron parts. Pay special attention to synapse and how it works |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
| bags of neurotransmitters that are released from the presynaptic neuron into the synapse to work on the receptors of the postsynaptic cell membrane |
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Term
| The bonds between the neurotransmitter and receptor |
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Definition
| are usually ionic (weak, temporary) and rarely covalent (permanent, strong). |
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Term
| he 3 ways a drug can be removed from the synapse |
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Definition
| 1) Breakdown by enzymes present in the synapse—true for a few, but not most, neurotransmitters. 2) Reuptake by the reuptake transporters on the presynaptic cell 3) Reuptake by nearby support (aka Glial) cells. |
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Term
| What is the central nervous system? |
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Definition
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Term
| What do the parts of the CNS do? |
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Definition
| The spinal cord has motor and sensory neurons, and the brain stem, located directly above the spinal cord, controls breathing and other vital functions. |
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Term
| Reticular Activating System |
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Definition
| Starts in brainstem and branches throughout brain; controls sleep/wake cycles and consciousness |
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Term
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Definition
| Handles vegetative functions; influences water balance, appetite, and temperature regulation |
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Term
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Definition
| Diffuse collection throughout brain; deals with emotional control. Has several key components |
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Term
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
| Short term memory center/control. (Short term memory is “converted” to long term memory when a transfer from the hippocampus to specialized part of cerebrum occurs |
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Term
| Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA), Nucleus Accumbens, (NA) |
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Definition
| Pathway activation of reward or pleasure. Deals often with dopamine |
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Term
| Cerebellum, basal ganglia, motor cortex (of cerebrum) and spinal cord |
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Definition
| all deal with coordinated skeletal muscle activity |
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Term
| Cerebrum a.k.a. cerebral cortex, or “cortex.” |
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Definition
| Involved in decision making, understanding and interpreting senses and languages, as well as states of thoughtfulness |
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Term
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Definition
| Similar to adrenaline/epinephrine—outside brain, plays role in stress response; inside brain, cell bodies in locus coeruleus and axons branch to affect wakefulness and focus. |
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Term
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Definition
| Regulates milk production, reward sensation (essential in VTA- NA pathways, a.k.a. “dopamine reward pathways”), motor coordination |
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Term
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Definition
| Plays part in short and long term memory. |
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Term
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Definition
| Amino acid NT; overall excitatory brain action; more excitability |
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Term
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Definition
| Amino acid NT; reduces overall brain activity (more mellow; less excitability) |
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Term
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Definition
| Example-beta endorphins like our endogenous opioids. Chains of amino acids used by brain as NTs |
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Term
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Definition
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