What impact does NMDA knockout or enhancement have in mice?

Knockout: less LTP AND LTD, generally slow learners. Enhanced: Stronger LTPs and long-lasting memory

The fact that London taxi drivers were shown to be better than bus drivers at identifying London landmarks and making judgments about proximal relations between London landmarks shows what?

Increased hippocampal activity

What did Maguire et al. (2000) show with regards to hippocampal structure?

Structural changes to the brain (specifically the posterior hippocampus) can be induced by experience

What is the definition of signal transduction?

It is the process through which intracellular protein(s) translate an exterior signal

How to mice with a mutant R(AB) gene respond to shock conditioning?

They will properly freeze after 1 hour but are defective in freezing at 24 hours because they lack PKA activity

How do wildtype mice which have been exposed to anisomycin (which blocks protein synthesis) respond to shock treatment?

They have defective long-term memory (which requires new protein synthesis)

How can signals be amplified in signal transduction pathways?

Primary and secondary effectors can greatly amplify even small signals as their signal is picked up by many more times the amount of responding molecules as there are signaling molecules

What roles in the cell do monomeric G-proteins play?

They play roles in differentiation, proliferation and neural plasticity

These are very important in synaptic vesicle trafficking and targeting and also help to define different intracellular compartments

Monomeric G-proteins

What are GAPs and what important function do they perform?

They are G-protein activating proteins and return G-proteins to their inactive states

In G-proteins, the alpha subunit is always the what?

GTPase

In G-proteins, what is important about the beta and gamma subunits?

They always work together in tandem

What happens when a signal binds to a receptor that couples with a G-protein?

The receptor complexes with the G-protein and the alpha subunit swaps out GDP in favor of GTP. The alpha subunit binds to one effector protein while the beta-gamma complex binds to another

How are muscarinic ACh-Rs in cardiac cells impacted by GPCRs?

The alpha subunit can inhibit sodium and calcium channels while the beta-gamma complex activates potassium channels which, all together, slow the heart rate

What role in G-protein signaling does adenylyl cyclase (a primary effector) have?

It converts ATP to cAMP (a secondary messenger)

What is the primary difference between the adenylyl cyclase and guanylyl cyclase systems?

They have parallel mechanisms, they're just activated by different stimuli

How does the PLC/IP3/PKC system work in general?

DAG and calcium work together and PKC is recruited to the membrane and is coactivated by phosphatidylserine

What action does cAMP have on PKA?

cAMP activates PKA

cAMP and cGMP both function as what?

Secondary messengers which activate cyclic nucleotide-gated channels

How is PKA activated?

By cAMP dissociation, the active kinase site is then exposed

How is CaMKII activated?

By calcium/CaM through unfolding which exposes its active kinase site

How is PKC activated?

It is activated by DAG, calcium and PS

What important role does phospholipase C generate through a membrane phospholipid, Pip2?

It generates secondary messengers

What function does calcium play in signal transduction?

It fuctions as a secondary messenger in many signal transduction pathways

Is calcium more concentrated inside of the cell or outside?

Outside