BIO SCI 35 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Gustducin, Optogenetics, Transducin

• School: UC-Irvine
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BIO SCI 35
• Professor: LEW, A.

Document Summary

Bio 35 - lecture 9 - depression and the happy pill. This protein is an icon channel that opens in response to blue light. Take the gene for this protein and insert the dna into neurons in the brain. Neurons communicate by firing. this is an electrical signal created by opening and closing ion channels. Now you can cause neurons to fire just by flashing blue light. When we have it in the visual system it is rhodopsin. Within rhodopsin there"s retinol (two isomers, one trans and one cis) when it gets a photon of light it changes from trans to cis. What did david anderson find: attack neurons are specific to the ventrolateral hypothalamus. Currently, how are mood disorders diagnosed: genetic testing, blood test, self-report of behavior, self-report of mood, brain scan, e. g. mri, pet, fmri, cat. Currently, brain imaging is not reliable for diagnosis. However, brain activity can be predictive of responsiveness to antidepressants.