BIOL 2299 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: High Fructose Corn Syrup, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, Prnp
18 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Depression has a profound impact on quality of life for millions of people worldwide. It remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experience it in its extreme mode . How exercise may protect against depression: pre-study knowledge. Exercise is well known to reduce depression symptoms: heterogeneity of depression makes more than one mechanism likely. Depression is accompanied by glutamate transmission imbalance and/or decreased synaptic plasticity: glutamate is an amino acid that plays a role as a neurotransmitter, synaptic plasticity is the ability of synapses to strengthen or weaken over time. Stress-induced neuroinflammatory pathways as the possible link. Kynurenine (kyn) pathway of tryptophan degradation is activated by stress as we as by inflammatory factors. Levels of kyn and its metabolite kynurenic acid (kyna) are strongly correlated to depression in human patients: modulate neuronal cell death, glutamate transmission, and neuroinflammation, also linked to schizophrenia, tics, tourette syndrome, and other conditions.
