Re: Scie chimiche: Discorso generale

Inviato da  Paxtibi il 4/9/2007 14:09:50
Scusate l'OT, ma dopo l'ultima battuta non ho resistito...


Report: nicotine enhances thinking ability

Conductors in the brain that to passively transport information from one brain cell to another can actually boost or dampen the signal, a new study suggests.

The results, found in mice, could explain how nicotine in cigarettes enhances mental sharpness in humans, a phenomenon documented in several past studies.

"We don't intend to say cigarettes are good by any stretch of the imagination," said study team member Raju Metherate, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Irvine. "But one reason [that] people probably like cigarettes is because it probably enhances their thinking ability."

Neuroscientists had thought hair-like extensions called axons were like the "wires" in a radio, transferring signals between brain cells.

"But we found that if you stimulate the axon, the signal can be altered, like turning the volume knob on the radio," Metherate said.

The scientists studied a region in the mouse brain associated with hearing that contained a brain cell with an axon connected to the brain's cortex. Like many axons in the brain, this one contains a receptor that is activated by acetylcholine; nicotine from cigarettes also binds to the acetylcholine receptor.

The scientists either stimulated the axon with nicotine or did not apply nicotine in their experiments. Without nicotine, about 35 percent of the messages sent by the brain cell reached the cortex, while the success rate almost doubled with nicotine.



E cosė abbiamo anche capito come mai tanta energia nella "lotta contro il fumo."

Messaggio orinale: https://old.luogocomune.net/site/newbb/viewtopic.php?forum=60&topic_id=2944&post_id=98793