Action potential

Tone is a normal state of balance in bodily tissue such as muscle and skin. In resting muscles, it is a state of partial contraction of a muscle to a pre-set length that serves to maintain posture, organ function, such as digestion, and reflexes. Generally speaking, a nerve from the spinal cord, spinal nerve, will grow from the spine to a muscle, it splits to form motor neurons, then contacts the muscle fiber at a point called the neuromuscular junction. This formation, in conjunction with…

restricted to the brain and spinal cord. Their main function is to keep chemical environments for neuronal signaling balanced. Oligodendrocytes are our lipid-rich wrapping found in our nervous systems. Myelin has important effects on the speed of action potential conduction. Microglial cells are much smaller cells derived from hematopoietic stem cells. These cells have a lot in common with macrophage tissue. They are basically scavenger cells which remove cellular debris from any site of…

1. Discuss what a neuron is and the functions of its basic parts (dendrites, soma, axon, myelin sheath). A neuron is a nerve cell. There are about 10,000 specific types of neurons, but there are three most common neurons: sensory, motor, and interneurons. A sensory neuron sends signals to help your brain understand what is going on around you in your environment. Sensory neurons are what make up your senses, (smell, touch, see, taste, and hear.)…

Myasthenia Gravis Background Myasthenia gravis is a Type II autoimmune disorder in which antibodies form against various types of receptors, kinases, or proteins (1). There are four subtypes of myasthenia gravis, with the most prevalent subtype being due to autoantibodies against the muscle-type acetylcholine receptor, AChR, at the neuromuscular junction (2; 3). The second subtype involves antibodies against the muscle-specific kinase, MuSK, and the third type is due to autoantibodies against…

TRPML1’s Impact on MLIV In the article, “Fusion of lysosomes with secretory organelles leads to uncontrolled exocytosis in the lysosomal storage disease mucolipidosis type IV” discussed the impacts of TRMPL1 on MLIV. Lysosomes are important in maintaining healthy cells, however, with the absence of lysosomal TRP channel TRPML1 then the lysosomal pH becomes more acidic because of the calcium leakage; hence, this makes lysosomes more sensitive to fusing, and due to being near exocytosis regulating…

Research Statement Past research accomplishments. Probing the dynamics of neuronal activities is crucial to understand the complex mechanisms of the brain and related diseases. Thus, there are great demands on optogenetic indicators for neuronal activities. However, engineering desired optogenetic indicators is a well-known challenge, probably due to the delicate sensing mechanisms, and the lack of effective high-throughput screen. To tackle this, I developed several novel molecular evolution…

The neurotransmitter that I chose to research is serotonin. It is created by a biochemical conversion process that combines tryptophan, a part of proteins, with tryptophan hydroxylase, a chemical reactor. Together, they form 5-hydroxyltryptamine (5-HT). Serotonin is manufactured in the brain and the intestines. The majority of the body's serotonin, between 80% to 90%, can be found in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. It can also be found in the blood platelets and the central nervous system.…

The human body consists of two nervous systems: Central Nervous System (CNS) and Peripheral Nervous System (PNS). The CNS consists of the brain and the spinal cord, whereas, the PNS consists of nerves outside the brain and spinal cord. The PNS connects the rest of the body to the CNS. The PNS are grouped into two categories, sensory (afferent) nerves and motor (efferent) nerves. Sensory nerves convey information from receptors to the CNS. Motor nerves convey information from the CNS to the…

through thin myelinated Aδ and unmyelinated C-fibers to the dorsal root group and into the posterior horn of the spinal cord. The axon bifurcates into two branches with one branch continuing to the CNS, the other innervating peripheral tissues. Action potentials are generated and the nociceptive signals initiate excitatory neurotransmitters such as glutamate and substance P, neuromodulators including brain-derived neurotrophic factor. These bind with afferent nerves which activate…

Our logic for choosing kinesin for developing CNS therapeutics is based upon our own research, which found that kinesins are transcriptionally upregulated during memory storage and that they are both necessary and sufficient to induce long-term memory storage (LTM) in the marine snail, Aplysia californica (Puthanveettil et al., 2008; Fig 1). Furthermore, other researchers have also discovered that an increase in specific kinesin function in the mouse forebrain improves working memory (Wong et al…