INTERESTING TIMES

What does pituitary mean, from the Latin? (think onomatopoeia...)
to spit mucus
ptuo = to spit, pituita = mucus

What do you call a hormone that acts on neighboring cells?
paracrine

Are pituitary hormones steroid, steroid type, or peptide hormones?
peptide, all of them are

What do you call the loss of lateral visual fields?
bitemporal hemianopsia

Damage to what part of the pituitary causes diabetes insipidus, and which hormone is lacking?
( self quiz from SSL's notes )

ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2008) — Obesity gradually numbs the taste sensation of rats to sweet foods and drives them to consume larger and ever-sweeter meals, according to neuroscientists. Findings from the Penn State study could uncover a critical link between taste and body weight, and reveal how flab hooks the brain on sugary food.
( notes )

When it gets hot, I like to go jump in the river. The Oregonians think the river is too dangerous, too polluted. I was repeating this viewpoint minutes ago, while sitting in a kiddy pool in my back yard with one of the young reporters who lives downstairs. She told me that in late July there was a toxic algae bloom in the Tualatin River. The Tualatin flows into the Willamette at Lake Oswego.

Public Health officials advised boaters and swimmers to stay away from it, and put up signs to warn people to keep out and keep their animals away. The USGS reports that 8-9 dogs/year die of drinking blue-green algae infested water.
( the toxins they aren't reporting about because they are so scarey )

Practiced yoga at the school this morning. Was up before 6am. Mind is going. I believe that there is a biological link between the strength of the core and the experience of BEING. Notice how all the really brilliant, centered people all sit up so straight? Walk so tall? Having a strong core and an aligned spine links, I think, into our limbic systems, into the most primitive part of our brains. Walking resets the emotions. Terry male says I have an overactive amygdala which is what causes me to have religious experiences. Brons says the amygdala is all about fear and aversion, anxiety, fear conditioning, antinociception and autonomic adjustments. Religious experiences, fear and aversion. I wonder where awe falls into that mix.
( I am fascinated by all my coursework right now but especially the brain material from Brons )

ON DRUG MECHANISMS
print chart from this page: http://www.e-epilepsy.org.uk/pages/articles/show_article.cfm?id=127

from Mechanisms of action of anti-epileptic drugs
Andrew Fisher, Matthew C Walker and Norman G Bowery*

Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy, Institute of Neurology, UCL, London, and *Department of Pharmacology, University of Birmingham Medical School, Birmingham

THREE main mechanisms by which current drugs appear to produce their anticonvulsant activity:
1) Modulation of intrinsic membrane conductances, primarily voltage-gated cationic channels
2) Suppression of excitatory amino acid-mediated synaptic transmission
3) Enhancement of GABAergic inhibitory synaptic transmission, via post-synaptic receptor modulation, inhibition of GABA metabolism or blockade of GABA transport.
( voltage gated sodium and calcium channels, GABA, glutamate and drugs )

Over the weekend I attended a conference called Transforming the Mind, and this piece was played as the grand finale: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

Jill Bolte Taylor is an excellent storyteller and the story is worth hearing. Jill is also a neuroanatomist. She had a stroke one morning and observed her own brain shutting down. The blood vessel popped in the left hemisphere of her brain, and crowded out her language centers and more, leaving her with right brain hemisphere functions. She experienced Nirvana, or what some might call a near death experience.....but it is better to hear her tell the tale. I hope you enjoy!

I believe we're talking about NEUROtransmitters, here, but Brons is abstruse. Small molecule transmitters are fast acting in acute sensory and motor responses of nervous system. Both direct and indirect. Removed from synapse by diffusion, enzymes or reuptake. Drugs often work by affecting synthesis or removal of transmitters. The action of a neurotransmitter is determined by its receptors. One neurotransmitter may affect different types of receptors each with a different action.
( Lots more )