homeostasis Flashcards
What is homeostasis?
The bodies natural state of balance.
e.g. before drinking alcohol, this is your bodies original balance point.
What is allostasis?
The state the body enters when re-seeking the balance for homeostasis.
e.g. When drinking lots of alcohol frequently, the new balance point is when your system has lots of alcohol in it.
What is tolerance?
Needing more of the substance to create the same effect as your body learns to adapt to it.
e.g. If you drink alcohol a lot, eventually you will need to drink more alcohol to get the same response.
What is neurotransmission?
Chemicals our nerves, cells or neurons, use to communicate.
How does neurotransmission work when there is a natural reward such as food?
When we eat something, signals are sent through the body to tell us if we like it or dislike it. If we like it, dopamine is released from the pre-synaptic cleft into the synaptic clef. After this, it is then taken though to the post synaptic cleft through receptors into the post synaptic cleft OR is taken by the re-uptake. This is neurotransmission and can also create a sense of happiness and/or excitement despite it being something we actually need to survive.
Describe chronic tolerance.
when a body adapts to constant exposure of a drug over weeks or months
Describe short term tolerance.
caused by repeated exposure to a drug over a short time
Describe learned tolerance.
frequent exposure to certain drugs
