Serotonin and dopamine are both found in the venoms of some scorpions and some centipedes.
Injected subcutaneously, as with a scorpion sting, the molecules are inflammatory.
Cannabinoids have an anti-inflammatory effect on the skin, as I cited in an earlier post.
Serotonin and dopamine are of course excitatory neurotransmitters.
Endocannabinoids serve to guide axons in the formation of new [...]
Archive for the ‘Dopamine’ Category
Inflammation and Otherwise
Posted in Dopamine, Serotonin, allergies, endocannabinoid, inflammation, neuroplasticity on July 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Insects Share Some Neurotransmitters with Humans and Other Mammals
Posted in Acetylcholine, Dopamine, Serotonin, evolution, insects on July 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Kelley at Bugs for Thugs:
Do insects have the same kinds of neurotransmitters as humans do? A neurotransmitter is a chemical messenger that is released when a nerve impulse reaches the synapse. Yes insects have them and even more they have some of the same neurotransmitters as vertebrates do, such as serotonin, dopamine, and acetylcholine.
An Article on Addiction Neuroscience That Doesn’t Suck
Posted in Dopamine, Glutamate, Obsessive-Compulsive Journalism, addiction on June 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Most journalists have heard that dopamine has something to do with addiction and, wanting to add a little scientific credibility to their drug-epidemic scare stories, convey this idea:
Drugs cause the brain to flood with dopamine. Dopamine makes you feel good. But the more you get, the more you kill the braincells which use it, so [...]
50 Years of Dopamine
Posted in Dopamine, neurogenesis on May 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
An interesting article on Arvid Carlsson, the man who established dopamine as a neurotransmitter: Neuroscience: The molecular wake-up call.
Also, I don’t have time to read this article which touches on dopaminergic neuron neurogenesis right now, but I’m going to stick it here for future reference.
Melanin notes
Posted in Dopamine, Melanin, evolution on May 26, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Do Fungi Feast on Radiation?
Like plants that grow toward the sun, dark fungi, blackened by the skin pigment melanin, gravitate toward radiation in contaminated soil. Scientists have observed the organisms—somewhere between plants and animals—blackening the land around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine in the years since its 1986 meltdown. “Organisms that make melanin [...]
Pesticides and Parkinson’s
Posted in Dopamine, environment on May 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Past exposure to low levels of pesticides that linger in the environment might accelerate the development of Parkinson’s, which would put baby boomers and millions of other aging Americans at risk of developing the brain disease earlier in life.
At the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco last week, researchers presented new findings that link [...]
Diet and Consciousness: An Example
Posted in Adrenaline, Dopamine, L-DOPA, Monoamine Oxidase, Noradrenaline, Serotonin, Tyramine, Tyrosine, diet on August 30, 2006 | 5 Comments »
Introduction and Overview
Before writing this post in the form in which it appears here, I set out to write an entry on tyramine, an exogenously created nervous system stimulant which plays a major role, I believe, in the sorry state of modern consciousness. But as I wrote, the story I was trying to tell got [...]
It isn’t the Transmitter, it’s the System
Posted in Dopamine, Serotonin, schizophrenia on August 23, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
The way neurochemistry is treated in the popular press, you’d think the presence of a neurotransmitter in the brain had a clear effect on consciousness. Increase the level of chemical X in the brain, you get happy, decrease the level of the same, you get sad. And so journalists have got into the habit of [...]
Your Second Brain
Posted in Adrenaline, Dopamine, L-DOPA, Noradrenaline, Tyrosine on August 21, 2006 | 1 Comment »
The parts of the adrenal glands which produce adrenaline are actually brain tissue. The adrenal glands consist of two tissues, a steroid-producing cortex and…
an inner medulla, which is a source of the catecholamines epinephrine and norepinephrine. The chromaffin cell is the principle cell type. The medulla is richly innervated by preganglionic sympathetic fibers and is, [...]
