Posted in Addiction, Channels, Drugs, Memory on Jun 24th, 2009
Some of you have mastered the art of cramming for exams. But what really happens when we store a thought for a very short period of time? What are memories made of? We’ve come a long way in our understanding since Dean Martin’s 1955 hit song. After looking at single neurons in the prefrontal cortex [...]
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Posted in Drugs on Dec 14th, 2007
Despite what you might think, a little bit of caffeine can help you study, but a lot of caffeine will just ruin your memory. Moderate amounts of caffeine have been shown to increase spine density in hippocampal neurons. These are only in vitro studies, but I suspect that students are conducting their own [...]
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Posted in Behaviour, Channels, Drugs on Aug 11th, 2007
Typically, the arsenal of pscho-active anti-depressants can take weeks if not months to take effect. But recent research has shown that ketamines can relieve symptoms of depression in a matter of hours. Ketamines appear to be NMDA antagonists; this can mediate LTD by stopping the sequestering of AMPA receptors. There may be [...]
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“In the lecture material given on 7/13 about drugs binding to the Cl channels. I am mostly confused about what the drugs do. I have written down that Benzodiazepine depolarizes the membrane to the voltage of equilibrium for Cl (according to the Nernst Equation). I also have written down that certain drugs inhibit the neuron [...]
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