Didn't Restak state in the series that we are our transmitters?
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Palij" <[email protected]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<[email protected]>
Cc: "Mike Palij" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2011 2:01 PM
Subject: Re: [tips] Weird question about dopamine and plants
Just to expand on what Carol said: receptor sites are present on different
types of muscles (e.g., smooth, cardiac) and can directly affect their
function.
One simple source that reviews this for adrenergic transmitters is:
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/663adrenergic.html
Richard Restak (neurologist who wrote "The Mind" and "The Brain" which
served as the basis for the PBS series) has an interesting little book
titled
"Receptors" that goes into more depth on the topic though it may be a little
dated now (it was published in 1994; his coverage of the relevant history
should be okay).
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
P.S. Restak's Chapter 10 is on good drugs/bad drugs and he starts out
with nicotine which he claims is a pretty lethal compound. Plants that
could
produced nicotine probably had a survival advantage because nicotine
could poison/kill insect predators. Indeed, nicotine used to be used as an
insecticide. See the Wikipedia entry on insecticides (yadda-yadda):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insecticide
----------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
On Tue, 25 Jan 2011 06:24:31 -0800, Carol DeVolder wrote:
Actually, no, you don't need a neuron to have a receptor site, although a
cell membrane is probably one of the minimum requirements. I've found a bit
of literature on it, and as you mentioned, dopamine (and the other
catecholamines) seem to be part of the stress response in plants.
Interesting, but not so much that I will dwell on it. Thanks for your
response!
Carol
On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Steven Hall [email protected]> wrote:
Not sure, but don't you need a neuron to have receptor sites?
Plants do have dopamine. but I don't know their purpose, it's something to
do with metabolism and protection from preditors.
Kuklin, A. & Conger, B. Catecholamines in plants.
Journal of Plant Growth Regulation. Volume 14, Number 2, 91-97, DOI:
10.1007/BF00203119
Dopamine Functions as an Antiherbivore Defense in the Temperate Green Alga
Ulvaria obscura
Kathryn L. Van Alstyne, Amorah V. Nelson, James R. Vyvyan and Devon A.
Cancilla
Oecologia Vol. 148, No. 2 (Jun., 2006), pp. 304-311
<http://www.springerlink.com/content/?Author=A.+I.+Kuklin>
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