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Medications can adjust the release of brain neurotransmitters in cases of depression, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia and other mental disorders because an imbalance within neurotransmitter systems can emerge as consistent characteristics in behaviour compromising people's lives. All people have a weaker form of such imbalance in at least one ...
Serotonin is a monoamine neurotransmitter that plays a regulatory role in mood, sleep, appetite, body temperature regulation, and other processes. Histamine is a monoamine neurotransmitter that is involved in arousal, pain, body temperature regulation, and appetite. Trace amines act as neuromodulators in monoamine neurons via binding to TAAR1.
These pathways converge in the lateral amygdala. Long-term potentiation (LTP) and synaptic plasticity that enhances the response of lateral amygdala neurons to the conditioned stimulus occurs in the lateral amygdala. As a result, the conditioned stimulus is then able to flow from the lateral amygdala to the central nucleus of the amygdala.
Glutamate, which is the most abundant neurotransmitter, is an excitatory neurochemical, meaning that its release in the synaptic cleft causes the firing of an action potential. GABA, or Gamma-aminobutyric acid, is an inhibitory neurotransmitter.
An implicit premise in neuropsychopharmacology with regard to the psychological aspects is that all states of mind, including both normal and drug-induced altered states, and diseases involving mental or cognitive dysfunction, have a neurochemical basis at the fundamental level, and certain circuit pathways in the central nervous system at a higher level.
Dopamine and serotonin pathway. One form of behavioral neuropharmacology focuses on the study of drug dependence and how drug addiction affects the human mind. Most research has shown that the major part of the brain that reinforces addiction through neurochemical reward is the nucleus accumbens. The image to the right shows how dopamine is ...
Serotonergic pathways. A serotonin pathway identifies aggregate projections from neurons which synthesize and communicate the monoamine neurotransmitter serotonin. [citation needed] These pathways are relevant to different psychiatric and neurological disorders. [1] [2] [3]
Other neurotransmitters are able to diffuse away from their targeted synaptic junctions and are eliminated from the body via the kidneys, or destroyed in the liver. Each neurotransmitter has very specific degradation pathways at regulatory points, which may be targeted by the body's regulatory system or medication.