Talk:Neurotransmitter

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 31 August 2021 and 16 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Good2bheretoday. Peer reviewers: EAGMIL, Magggey.

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Untitled
We need: criteria for being a neurotransmitter (1. endogenous synthesis 2. quantities in the presynaptic neuron must be of sufficient quantity to exert an effect on the post-synaptic neuron 3. externally administered, it must mimic the endogenously released substance 4. a biochemical mechanism for inactivation must be present).

More information about inactivation mechanisms. Diffusion and reuptake by astrocytes in the CNS is not mentioned.

The current definition does not seem right: "Neurotransmitters are chemicals that are used to relay, amplify and modulate electrical signals between a neuron and another cell." My objection is that the Neurotransmitter is the signal between the cells - there is usually no electrical signal between cells/neurons - electrical signals primarily exsists within a neuron.


 * I agree that the current sentence (quoted above) mixes together two concepts. Maybe it could be split into two sentences: "Neurotransmitters are chemicals that can function as signals released from neurons. Neurotransmitters influence the behavior of nearby cells, often by modifying electrical signals that propagate along cell surface membranes."


 * Electrical is not essential as it is and is a bit misleading without the additional sentence. DCDuring 17:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

production?
Where are transmitters produced?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.30.206.172 (talk • contribs)
 * I'm not sure for all of them, but glutamate is formed in neurons. Since it would activate glutamate receptors on neurons, it is uptaken by glia, transformed into glutamine, which is released into the extracellular space.  Neurons take up the glutamine and transform it back into glutamate.  You may not want to quote me on that, since I'm recalling from memory.  See synaptic vesicle and neurotransmitter transporter for more info.   delldot   talk  19:44, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Neurotransmitter effects
Recently, I have been recovering from an MAOI discontinuation syndrome due to hospital mismanagement which has put me in a unique position to identify the effects of fluctuating dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin levels (due to departures from homeostasis incurred by physical dependence) in relative isolation from each other. On November 9, 2007, unlike on prior days, my serotonin level underwent considerable variation, allowing me to experience its effects in addition to those of the other two neurotransmitters, which I had experienced previously. As a result, I believe I have experienced "pure" forms of several mental disorders, which are generally caused by messy combinations of multiple neurotransmitters. Serendipitously, this occurred at the office of my psychiatrist in Sacramento, allowing me to discuss my experiences with him as they occurred throughout the day.

Neurotransmitter production appears to require glucose, as eventually all three reached low levels simultaneously, accompanied by symptoms of hypoglycemia. Food led to gradual recovery.

Please note that norepinephrine appears to be solely responsible for causing effects to be displeasurable; that is, dysphoria and even extreme effects such as pseudoparkinsonism are not in themselves unpleasant regardless of whether they may be disturbing at a cognitive level. This suggests the most urgently needed new drug is a norepinephrine stabilizer. By far, the most pleasurable effect is the catatonic fixation induced by extremely low serotonin, which may have profound implications for meditative behavior.

In these tables, decreasing levels are indicated by left arrows, while increasing levels are indicated by right arrows. Regrettably, the following is based only on subjective observations, without objective measurements. All of the listed effects are temporary, although it seems I may now have limited direct control over each neurotransmitter.

1 Following a demonstration of this for my psychiatrist, I was informed it differs from the effects of parkinsonism.

2 Note that sadness appears linked to cholinergic syndrome, which produces tears.

3 These hallucinations resemble certain effects of LSD, as have been described to me. Floor tiles appeared to slide past each other; lines between them disappeared at random, suggesting blind spots; closed magazines on a table appeared to curl upward at their edges; carpeting with a simple, repetitive pattern appeared to develop tectonics.

4 This effectively produces tunnel vision. Faces produce stronger fixation than all other images and may have a positive effect on dopamine.

— 66.218.55.142 14:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Improvements
mattycoze and I have been discussing ways to expand and improve the article. He suggested a bunch of additions on my talk page, including explanations of how they're synthesized and broken down. I think a section on the 'lifecycle' (what would be a better word for this?) might be a good idea, i.e. a depiction of what typically happens from synthesis to release to reuptake and breakdown. What do others think? delldot on a public computer  talk  07:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh heh, sorry guys I'm kinda new to the Wikipedia editing thing... maybe next time i should check out the discussion pages before i start adding my own crap to the articles! Anyway will know better next time Mattycoze (talk) 11:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Nonsense! You're doing awesome.  Anyway, even if you were to do something wrong, it would be easily fixable.  Keep it up!   delldot on a public computer   talk  11:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

merge suggestion
I was wondering what would be the difference between neurotransmitters and neuromodulators Kpmiyapuram (talk) 15:42, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Neuromodulators are a subset of neurotransmitters, whose main defining feature is a slow time course. Glutamate acting on AMPA receptors is not a neuromodulator, because its effects are over in a few msec, but a peptide that affects the postsynaptic cell for minutes or longer after release would be called a neuromodulator.  It's definitely an important enough concept to deserve a separate article.  The current article is not terribly good, but I think it would be better to leave the material there in hopes of improvement than to try to merge it all.


 * To amplify this a little, as I see it the term "neuromodulator" is a bit of an abuse in the same way that "excitatory neurotransmitter" is. It isn't really the transmitter itself that is a neuromodulator, it is that the transmitter has a "neuromodulatory effect" in a certain system -- meaning a long-lasting effect.  This kind of abuse is however so common that it probably doesn't make sense for our articles to fight against it. Looie496 (talk) 18:03, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with Looie496; there is a difference between neurotransmitters and neuromodulators that should be preserved. Neurotransmission is the separate (important) process. I've removed the merge suggestions. Shanata (talk) 11:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Needs History Section
Anyone object to adding a history section? Paskari (talk) 10:27, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea! No objection from me. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:04, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

And it really needs some cleaning up in the introduction! Cajal did NOT discover the synaptic cleft, that was only made possible through the use of the electron microscope, which started being used in biology in the late 1940's early 1950s. Also, neurons DO communicate electrically, both over long distances (action potentials) and through electrical synapses. There are many other errors, omissions and inaccuracies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Felixschweizer (talk • contribs) 23:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, action potentials are not purely electrical since they involve gated ion channels, but other than that I agree. Please feel free to fix any problems you discover -- I'll keep an eye on the edits and chime in if there's anything that seems wrong to me.  There aren't many people working on these articles -- I've done some work recently on chemical synapse but haven't gotten to this one yet, so any help you can give would be terrific.  Regards, Looie496 (talk) 00:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Feedback
I think it would be helpful for readers if more information on excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters was provided, and what exactly that means. Shelbyknorr23 (talk) 15:22, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I think the use of tables in this article were very helpful. The organization of this article was set up well and was easy to follow. For example, the heading "Types" was useful because it helped break up the topic into subtopics that were easier to understand and help set up the rest of the articles, including the tables. I think tables are always useful becasue they are a good visual cue and easy to refer back to when needed while reading the rest of the article. Shelbyknorr23 (talk) 15:20, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Regarding glycine
Should glycine not have the NMDA receptor listed as one of its ionotropic receptors?

It appears slightly misleading to list the NMDA receptor only as a receptor of glutamate, as the receptor requires the co-agonist glycine to function. In addition, the neurotransmitter D -serine binds to the glycine binding site more potently than glycine itself.

I will add D -serine to the neurotransmitter table and add the NMDA receptors as known potent binding sites of the two. If anyone disagrees with this, please let me know. Erebusthedark (talk) 19:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposition: More Categories of Neurotransmitters
Simply throwing the neurotransmitters ATP, adenosine, inosine, acetylcholine, and the endocannabinoids into the "Other" category is a bit premature. I propose two new categories: purines and endocannabinoids, with acetylcholine remaining in the "Other" group. Erebusthedark (talk) 19:02, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree that the categorization here is rather strange; I've added the purine category. I suppose one problem with the endocannabinoid signaling is that much of it is retrograde (in the traditional orientation).Klbrain (talk) 15:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I find this article good and inforamtive. But I was looking for Where the Gaba and tha NMDA system fits in. As I understand it the GABA system is the inhibitory part of the Glutamate system and the NMDA system is a specific receptor in the GABA system. But maybe I am wrong?Drlars10 (talk) 08:56, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're very confused, I'm afraid. GABA is a neurotransmitter that has generally inhibitory effects; glutamate is a neurotransmitter that has generally excitatory effects; and NMDA is a type of receptor for glutamate (not GABA). Looie496 (talk) 15:42, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Page edits
Hello Wikipedians! My group (ve-hunter-511, exotic_necii, arista2014, ziggapedia92) and I have been working on updates to the neurotransmitter page as part of a group project for a PSYCH course. Any feedback/suggestions are welcome. It's our goal to make the information on this page as well-organized and reliable as possible for readers around the world. Cheers!--IDidThisForSchool (talk) 20:44, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

For reference purposes: a few edits have been done by user 65.78.175, which happens to be me. I was making the edits whilst not signed into my account and they were posted as such. Sorry for the confusion and/or any misunderstandings. --IDidThisForSchool (talk) 20:12, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

ATTENTION: our academic group assignment is wrapping up and undergoing evaluation as of Thursday, December 11th until the 18th. If possible, please PING the aforementioned group members if you decide to make any major changes to the content during this time. Thank you for your patience and cooperation throughout the semester. --IDidThisForSchool (talk) 13:14, 8 December 2014 (UTC)


 * ve-hunter-511, exotic_necii, arista2014, ziggapedia92, and IDidThisForSchool: I've had to undo many of your changes, as in your zeal to get your names in the edit summary for class credit some of your changes have made the article almost unreadable.
 * ziggapedia92 seems to have replaced random words with thesaurus synonyms, often with hilarious results, such as changing "certain" to "convinced", where the alternate word is a synonym for one definition of "certain" (for example, the use in "I am certain that the sky is blue"), but the sentence in the article used another meaning of "certain" (it was talking about "certain types of neurotransmitters", which was changed to "convinced types of neurotransmitters"). In addition, Ziggapedia92 replaced perfectly accurate terms like "depressed", "control", and "classify" with colloquialisms like "down in the dumps", "having power over", and "pigeonhole". I've had to undo all of ziggapedia92's edits.
 * Exotic necii made several good edits and content additions (thanks!), but also tried to take a discussion of two message types in the "Excitatory and Inhibitory" section and turn it into a bulleted list, but the two bullets were NOT about that two types of messages (both bullets contained discussion of both types).
 * Ve-hunter-511 added some good missing commas and made some good grammar fixes (thank you!), but I did have to revert a change to a section heading that was contrary to Manual_of_Style
 * No complaints about Arista2014's or IDidThisForSchool's edits. Thank you.
 * --166.20.224.13 (talk) 16:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

What's with the wording of this article?
So much of this article seems to use very awkward wording, giving the appearance that the editor was translating from another language and often chose the wrong translated words. Are these jargon specific to this medical field? Some examples (that I've fixed) include: --166.20.224.11 (talk) 15:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * "...only necessitate a small integer of biosynthetic processes...": Is "number" okay here, or are there fractional processes that are important?
 * "...precursors (such as amino acids), which are willingly available from the diet..." Isn't this a little anthropomorphic? Should this be "readily"?
 * "...on the other hand, a quantity of neurotransmitters may have the dimensions..." Again, is "number" okay here?
 * "In anticipation of the early 20th century, scientists understood that the preponderance..." I'm not sure anyone was anticipating anything. Is just "In the early 20th century" okay?
 * "Glutamate is used at the immense preponderance of speedy excitatory synapses in the brain and spinal cord." What's wrong with "most" and "fast"?
 * "...competent of escalating or diminishing in potency..." What's wrong with "capable of increasing or decreasing in strength"?
 * "...as some down in the dumps patients are seen to have lower concentrations of metabolites..." Really? "Down in the dumps"? Is "depressed" not politically correct any more?
 * "...Have petite or no end product on membrane voltage..." What's wrong with "little or no effect"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.20.224.12 (talk) 15:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm especially concerned with changes like changing "certain" to "convinced", where the alternate word is a synonym for one definition of "certain" (for example, the use in "I am certain that the sky is blue" could be changed to "I am convinced that the sky is blue"), but the sentence in the article used another meaning of "certain" (It was talking about "certain types of neurotransmitters", while "convinced types of neurotransmitters" makes no sense). It looks like there were a lot of arbitrary wording changes made to get someone's name in the edit summary. I'm going to just go ahead and mass revert those edits. --166.20.224.11 (talk) 15:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok to change neurotransmitter definition & citation?
Would it be ok to change the definition to "Neurotransmitters are endogenous chemicals that pass signals across a synapse from one neuron (nerve cell) to another "target" neuron, muscle cell, or gland cell.", and then change the citation to "Molecular Cell Biology. 4th edition, Section 21.4", which is online at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21521/, and which section reads "...synapses are the junctions where neurons pass signals to other neurons, muscle cells, or gland cells"? (I did add the source url to External Links, because it's interesting.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.6.224.162 (talk) 23:36, 15 May 2015 (UTC) .
 * I think that that's a better definition than the one that is currently up, which relates only to synaptic transmission (from neuron to neuron) and exclude junctional transmission (neuron to other cell type). Given that much of what we know about neurotransmitters was first discovered at the skeletal neuromuscular junction (related to the action of acetylcholine) then I think that your suggestion is much better. I'll implement it and we'll see what the reaction is. Klbrain (talk) 15:27, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Improper segue in explaining Excitatory and Inhibitory attributes
I am simply an independent autodidactic party with no academic affiliation, but I feel I have a satisfactory understanding of what this article says in regards to neurotransmitters. I have a little bit of understanding on how transistors create digital logic and I imagine "inhibitory" or "excitatory" attributes of neurotransmitters being analogous to an extremely sophisticated and carefully modulated gate-mechanism for a computer transistor. However the article is a mess and segues from neurotransmitters to synapses almost immediately (3rd sentence):

"A neurotransmitter influences trans-membrane ion flow either to increase (excitatory) or to decrease (inhibitory) the probability that the cell with which it comes in contact will produce an action potential. Thus, despite the wide variety of synapses, they all convey messages of only these two types, and they are labeled as such."

and never mentions the term neurotransmitter nor any thing which it has explained is a neurotransmitter, in any of the remaining 11 sentences.

Here it even appears to contradict itself, saying:

"Type I synapses are excitatory in their actions, whereas type II synapses are inhibitory."

as it just explained neurotransmitters cause "trans-membrane" ion flow to be inhibited or excited. The way I understand it is that the only kind of membrane that could be referred to here is synaptic membrane, please correct me if I am wrong, so how could synapse be so-called "type 1" or "type 2" if its the neurotransmitter which affects ion flow through the synapse.

The way I understand transistors is: The voltage has to be great enough to pass the wrong way on a silicon diode, in order to do this controllably, current is applied to the prohibitive side of the diode in two different locations one current is repeating to the rhythm of a quartz oscillator (an extremely small mechanical watch) and the other is generated as a reaction to user input; only when the two currents are applied to the diode simultaneously is the combined voltage supposed high enough to create the equivalent of a 1 in binary. This is a binary system however, so it may be possible the purpose of having both an inhibitory and an excitatory transmitter would be to create different reactions based on a different voltages passing through the same synapse, but I digress.

There is only one source cited for 14 sentences of text, and it is a book titled for some general introduction to theories on the brain with no page numbers given, despite being a very specific subject. I would like to know more about the difference between inhibitory and excitatory factors for synapses and exactly how neurotransmitters are involved, and I would expect this article to provide that to be honest. I would also like to know if their is a difference between how different neurotransmitters are involved in this dynamic and I would like more specific sources for further study. Thank You for listening. 2602:306:CFBB:E5C0:5CA2:B5CB:AE56:92B0 (talk) 15:36, 25 June 2015 (UTC)eaterjolly1

It's important to understand that neurotransmitters cause effects on the target cell, but those effects are determined by the receptors and channels on the target cell membrane, not necessarily by the neurotransmitter (the neurotransmitter may have opposite effects on a target cell based on receptors)Good2bheretoday (talk) 05:12, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

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very low quality
Under the section "actions", under examples, see the last 3: norepinephrine, epinephrine, and histamine. each one has a mistake. 1) Norepinephrine is not a complete sentence. 2) epinephrine does not control the adrenal glands, but is released from them. 3) "Histamine works with the central nervous system." what does that mean: "works with"

Otherwise a great article so far. thank you very much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.224.234.7 (talk) 22:41, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

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School Project: Clean Up and Reorganization
I'm thinking of making this article my project for one of my classes(I'm a senior studying Biophysics) My focus would be to reorganize the content to provide a better presentation of the information by:

Introduction: I feel the first paragraph is redundant in it's definition of a neurotransmitter, I would introduce the idea of inhibitory or inhibitory effects, commonly studied neurotransmitters and common diseases and conditions associated with them.

Type Section: I think the types section would be better placed at the end of the article with the list of important neurotransmitter function either going just before, after, or being incorporated as a link to more specific learning. As is, it disrupts the flow of the article. Revising the Inhibitory v Excitatory section: place it nearer to the introduction with a clearer explanation on how the effect of the neurotransmitter is dependent on the receptors of the target cell not on the neurotransmitter itself.

Merging some sections? I'm just feeling out the idea of merging neurotransmitter elimination with their mechanism, same with the agonists, antagonists, and drug antagonists sections.

Overall I'd mostly be updating information as I find sources for many uncited or vague statements, and working to reorganize the content.

I'm just feeling out how people feel about me making some of those type changes. If I choose this as my project, we can discuss the specifics. Any advice or input is VERY appreciated.

Good2bheretoday (talk) 00:41, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Introduction
I just changed FROM "A Neurotransmitter is signaling molecule secreted by a neuron to signal another cell across a synapse. The cell receiving the signal, or target cell, may be another neuron, but could also be a gland or muscle cell. Neurotransmitters are chemical substances made by the neuron specifically to transmit a message.[1]" TO: "A Neurotransmitter is signaling molecule secreted by a neuron to signal another cell across a synapse. The cell receiving the signal, or target cell, may be another neuron but could also be a gland or muscle cell." and cutting out the last sentence as it feels redundant.

Let me know what you think, or if you want to change it backGood2bheretoday (talk) 01:38, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Mechanism and Cycle Section
I'm currently working to combine the mechanism and elimination sections to better explain the 'life cycle' for lack of better words. Anyone hate the idea of losing the independent elimination section? Good2bheretoday (talk) 05:14, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I just published the revised section and deleted the elimination section Good2bheretoday (talk) 06:44, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology Capstone
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