Posted by Tomatheus on March 17, 2016, at 16:59:44
In reply to Re: Too much Serotonin? » Tomatheus, posted by J Kelly on March 17, 2016, at 13:37:35
> Oh my gosh you hold yourself to such a high standard!! Absolutely no apology necessary.
>
> I really appreciate the time and effort that obviously goes into your posts. You are a very generous contributor here from what I've seen :)Thank you for writing this, Jade. It's helpful to know that you value the contributions that I make to this board, but given that I think that you've contributed to this board quite positively yourself (especially as of late), I still think that you deserve better than to have what you wrote on the Stablon thread that RJ started overlooked. As I said, my oversight was a big one, and even though I didn't intend to overlook what you had written, I don't like that what I wrote might have inadvertently led to you have felt overlooked.
Regarding serotonin antagonists, my understanding of the effects that these medications have on serotonergic neurotransmission is limited, but I'll try to explain what I know. Essentially, serotonin is a neurotransmitter that some neurons use to communicate with one another, and this process is accomplished when presynaptic neurons release the neurotransmitter from their axon terminals into the gaps between two neurons that are referred to as synapses. After passing through the synapse between two neurons, serotonin then activates receptors on the dendrites of postsynaptic neurons. This receptor activation opens ion channels that produce either an excitatory response or an inhibitory response in the postsynaptic neuron. Now, some medications can bind to the same receptors that serotonin activates with different types of effects. Like the serotonin molecules themselves, serotonin receptor agonists (otherwise known as "full agonists") serve to activate the receptors, basically mimicking the effects of the neurotransmitter. Partial agonists of serotonin receptors also activate the receptors, but with less intensity than full agonists do. Serotonin receptor antagonists essentially bind to the receptors that they have an affinity for without activating them. In other words, antagonists essentially block the activation of the receptors that both serotonin and the receptor agonists would produce.
In all likelihood, though serotonin receptor antagonists do block the receptor activation that serotonin would produce, blocking serotonin receptors may have other effects on the serotonin system, most of which I would suspect are beyond my current level of understanding of how neurotransmission operates. For instance, activating one type of serotonin receptor (the 5HT2A receptor) actually leads to a reduction in the stimulation of another type of serotonin receptor, the 5HT1A receptor (Stahl, 2000). Antagonizing, or blocking, 5HT2A receptors might then indirectly boost the effects of stimulating 5HT1A receptors, at least according to Stahl (2000). So, obviously, the effects that serotonin antagonists might have are rather complicated, at least to me, but I think that one of the more apparent effects that serotonin receptor antagonists have is to block the receptor activation that serotonin would produce.
Tomatheus
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REFERENCE
Stahl, S.M. (2000). Essential psychopharmacology of depression and bipolar disorder. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
"Maybe someday
We'll figure all this out
We'll put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to just feel better now"- Rob Thomas
poster:Tomatheus
thread:1087183
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20160306/msgs/1087264.html