The Neurotransmitter Of A Motor Disorder

Most people usually think of the brain or heart being the most important part of our body. While they are indeed important, they would be entirely useless if certain substances called neurotransmitters didn’t exist. Neurotransmitters are substances in our body that carry signals from one nerve cell to another. Without these neurotransmitters in our body, we wouldn’t receive crucial signals such as telling our heart to beat. Six of the most common neurotransmitters in our body are dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).

Neurotransmitters provide the connection between one nerve cell and another. It is also now suspected that people with Attention Deficit Disorder have a chemical imbalance of a class of neurotransmitter called catecholamine. Dopamine, helps to form a pathway between the motor center of the midbrain and the frontal lobes, as well as a pathway between the limbic system and the frontal lobes. Without enough dopamine and related catecholamine, such as serotonin and norepinephrine, the frontal lobes are under stimulated and thus unable to perform their complex functions efficiently.

    In the human brain, the neurotransmitter that helps regulate voluntary body movement and emotional responses is known as dopamine. It also helps control the reward and pleasure centers of the brain.

The initial indication of schizophrenia being a factor of dopamine was amphetamine consumers. Amphetamine causes several symptoms of schizophrenia including: delusions and hallucinations. In schizophrenics there is an unsteady, high amount of dopamine in the brain. Antipsychotic drugs work to lower the presence of dopamine on the brain by impeding dopamine receptors. There are two primary dopamine receptors, D1 and D2. In schizophrenic patients the latter is split into D2, D3 and D4 subtypes. Dopamine activators are found in the striatum, prefrontal cortex and limbic system of the brain. Clinical research has observed an increase of dopamine in the emotion controlling striatum through PET and SPECT brain scans. Unfortunately there is no one pinpointed cause of high dopamine levels. Many of these causes are: Agitation, anxiety, cognitive acuity, feeling of pleasure, hedonism, high energy, high libido, insomnia, paranoia and

Dopamine establishes different levels of the neurotransmitter in both the dorsa striatal and ventral striatal-prefrontal as dopamine is released. The dopamine released in the ventral striatal determines how strenuously individuals perform repeated tasks over time and the dopamine released in the dorsa striatal determines the speed in which the actions occur (p. 645). According to Luck, Wevrick & Vitaterna (2016) dopamine plays a crucial role in reward-associated behavior such as gambling, drug use, and over-eating, hence the word dopamine is often paired with the term “pleasure system.” Associations with dopamine have been correlated with feelings of enjoyment, pleasure and rewarding experiences and the reward canal is concentrated on dopaminergic neurons located mostly in areas of the midbrains (448-449).

This first video called, The Mechanisms of Drug Addiction in the Brain (Alila Medical Media, 2014), was a very informative video of the brain structure. It showed us how different drugs react in our brain and showed us a great visual of how these drugs interact and lead to more production of dopamine (e.g. over stimulation of dopamine levels leading to euphoria/good feelings). The video explains this process as, the major reward pathways involved in the transmission of the neurotransmitter dopamine from the ventral tegmental area – the VTA - of the midbrain to the limbic system and the frontal cortex (Alila Medical Media, 2014). The text also explained this process as directly or indirectly targeting the brain’s rewards system by releasing

acid, serotonin, dopamine, and epinephrine. Serotonin appears to be important as it deals with the

These drugs are best know for altering the user's brain, There are two types of ways the drug affects the brain. Both of the types affect neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are natural brain chemicals that communicate information throughout the brain and body. Different ones have a different job in our body. For example one can tell you to breathe and another can tell your stomach to growl when you're hungry.

Dopamine is a multi-function neurotransmitter that regulates mobility, learning, emotions, appetite, and positive reinforcing effects.

The neurotransmitters are chemicals, which transmit electrical signals from one neuron another neuron, gland or muscle. They played an important role in interstellar communication within the Central Nervous System and muscle, neurons, and glands. The neurotransmitters are releases from the synaptic vesicles to the so called, synaptic cleft. There are many kinds of neurotransmitters such as the peptides, acetylcholine, monoamines, and amino acids, among others.

In glutamatergic synapses the neurotransmitter glutamate transmits nerve impulses. Glutamate is the prevalent excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system (CNS). It can act on two distinguished receptors: ligand gated ion channels (ionotropic receptors) and G-protein coupled receptors (metabotropic receptors). In addition, several drugs can interfere with glutamatergic such as: Riluzole, N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) and Tezampanel.

Ketone bodies are three different biochemicals that are produced as by-products when fatty acids broken down for energy.Two of the three are used as a source of energy for the brain. Neurotransmitters (such as serotonin and dopamine) work by changing these membrane potentials in various ways. Neurotransmitters can open ion channels, allowing sodium to enter the cell and causing a wave of electrical impulse that travels along the neuron. This is the problem in bipolar patients, especially with the neurotransmitters of seratonin and dopamine. The synapse region does not allow a message from one neuron to pass to another neuron correctly, making one react to a situation in an inappropriate manner, sometimes with little inhibition.

The human nervous system consists of highly specialised cells called neurons. They transmit signals via chemical substances named neurotransmitters from one location to another across neuronal synapses (1-3). Neurotransmitters are stored in a vesicle prior to their release into synaptic cleft to activate the next population of neurons. Individual vesicle is capable of releasing neurotransmitter that exceeds the amount needed by the post-synaptic receptor (1). There are two main classes of neurotransmitters, named excitatory and inhibitory depending on their activity on the neurons. Neurons in the brain can be directly or indirectly influenced by each neurotransmitter, thus affecting behavioural response of an individual. One

Even with the addition of these organization methods there are simply too many specific neurotransmitters to be discussed completely so as result scientists will typically focus on those chemicals that are either found in the brain in either abundance or those that when affected cause very commonly seen problems in a person’s life such as anxiety or depression. On the topic of the structure of neurotransmitters, typically the chemicals fall in one of three overall categories: amino acids, neuropeptides, and biogenic amines (Purves, D). These categories are assigned due to the arrangement of chemicals found within the molecules and typically as a result its size as

An individual’s behavior and emotion becomes chemically altered often resulting in dependency, aggression, onset of diseases and poor judgement. This poses a dangerous threat to the neurotransmitters since they have multiple jobs in different parts of the brain. Drugs of abuse are able to exert influence over the brain reward pathway either by directly influencing the action of dopamine within the system, or by altering the activity of other neurotransmitters that exert a modulatory influence over this pathway. These drugs are often powerful and have been known to trigger schizophrenic behavior and can also cause a person to cease breathing, for example hallucinogens such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin are able to artificially stimulate the serotonin receptor (Sapolsky, 2005).