PSYB65H3 Chapter 8-2: Chapter 8-2
Document Summary
Sudden infant death syndrome (sids): unexplained death while asleep of a seemingly healthy infantless than 1 year old. Evidence that sids is a nervous-system disorder: higher chance of serotonin transporter abnormality. Serotoninergic system stimulates a mechanism to respond to high co2 lvls in blood and expel it. Sids victims more likely to have a gene variation that makes the serotonin (5-ht) transporter more efficient (serotonin is cleared from synapse faster). So, faster reuptake of serotonin makes serotonin less effective in regulating life-threatening events (ie. co2 buildup during sleep). Thus, babies will breathe in lethal levels of co2: lower occurrence of 5-ht1a receptors in sids victims" brains. This reduced serotonergic system"s effectiveness in regulating behaviour. More likely to occur in boys than girls, a finding that is consistent with higher sids mortality in boys. Genetic manipulation of 5-ht receptors in mice (enrica audero and colleagues, 2008) showed:
