Neurotransmitters

Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Related to Neurotransmitters: serotonin, dopamine

neurotransmitters

A range of small-molecule chemical substances released by EXOCYTOSIS from a nerve ending on the arrival of a nerve impulse. Neurotransmitters are specific to particular neurons. They interacts with receptors on adjacent structures to trigger off a response, either excitatory or inhibitory. The adjacent structure may be another nerve, a muscle fibre or a gland. The main neurotransmitters are acetylcholine, glycine, glutamate, dopamine, noradrenaline, adrenaline, serotonin, histamine and GABA (gamma-amino-butyric acid). With the exception of the adrenalines all the neurotransmitters are AMINO ACIDS or derivatives of amino acids.

Collins Dictionary of Medicine © Robert M. Youngson 2004, 2005

Neurotransmitters

Chemicals within the nervous system that transmit information from or between nerve cells.

Mentioned in: Bulimia Nervosa, Impotence, Pain, Withdrawal Syndromes

References in periodicals archive ?

* Amino acids are the building blocks of neurotransmitters and some can cross the blood-brain barrier.

Clinical relevance of neurotransmitter testing

The artificial cell is made from an electricity-conducting plastic and can deliver different kinds of neurotransmitter.

Artificial brain cell to fight disease

Hyperexcitability: Excessive activity of a nerve cell or neural system resulting from excessive responsiveness to excitatory neurotransmitters or reduced responsiveness to inhibitory neurotransmitters.

Glossary

Several years ago there were no "pediatric neurotransmitter diseases." That's not to say that these devastating disorders recently arrived from some alien life form.

Report of a case of double vision

Neurotransmitters regulate many different aspects of mood, cognition, and behavior, such as emotional state, reactions to stress, pain, and the physical drives of sleep, appetite, and sexuality.

Synaptic vesicles help relay messages

Neurons respond to the floods of neurotransmitters by altering their chemical message system.

Close-up: teen brain

From oocyte to neuron: do neurotransmitters function in the same way throughout development?

The sea urchin embryo as a model for mammalian developmental neurotoxicity: ontogenesis of the high-affinity choline transporter and its role in cholinergic trophic activity

If you want to know the condition of your body in the future, look at your mind now." Thousands of years before neurotransmitters were discovered, Ayurveda understood the relationship between mind and body.

Ocean of consciousness: can knowledge based in East India reduce the stresses of modern American life? Tom McKinley Ball deepens our awareness of Transcendental Meditation

Monoamine oxidase (MAO) is an enzyme that reduces neurotransmitters to their metabolites for excretion, thus providing an essential component of the normal cycle of transmitter production and excretion.

The Neurobiology of Antidepressants

It's a sense that early relapse with subsequent need for escalating doses is more common today with SSRIs than when patients were treated with tricyclic antidepressants and other agents affecting multiple neurotransmitters.

Depression Affected by Many Neurotransmitters

The pharmacology of all SSRIs is in some ways similar to that of other antidepressants, such as the tricyclic antidepressant compounds (TCAs), which block the reuptake of various neurotransmitters. However, as the name implies, SSRI drugs are highly selective reuptake inhibitors and have little effect on other neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine or dopamine.

Understanding fluoxetine (Prozac)

There are 30 or 40 neurotransmitters that are used by the ten million cells of the brain.