Posts tagged GABA
A New Neurotransmitter (D-Aspartic Acid)
May 13th
In 2011, you would think that neuroscience is focused on discovering answers to high-level questions about the brain; how consciousness arises, how emotions work, what is autism, etc. Although progress is being made in all of those areas, it seems that we still have a great deal to learn about even the most basic components of the brain.
Recently, a group from Naples reports that D-Aspartic acid functions as a neurotransmitter in both a mammal the rats (Rattus norvegicus), and a mollusk (Loligo vulgaris). D-Aspartic acid (D-Asp) has been known to scientists for well over a century. However, its role as a More >
Your teacher was wrong!
Nov 12th
I studied neuroscience in college and subsequently taught it for three years at university. One of the central tenants of the course I studied and taught was the dogma of synaptic transmission. The basic tenant of this dogma is that neurons communicate exclusively by sending chemical signals across the synaptic cleft. Pretty much every neuroscience textbook ever written is filled with this idea. It turns out that this is not actually the whole truth. To communicate, brain cells do not need a synapse at all!
This is the surprising news from a team of researchers are the University of Szeged, Hungary. More >
