Caffeine, the stimulant in coffee, has been called “the most widely used psychoactive substance on Earth.
”
Snyder, Daly and Bruns have recently proposed that caffeine affect behavior by countering the activity in the
human brain of a naturally occurring...
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Caffeine, the stimulant in coffee, has been called “the most widely used psychoactive substance on Earth.
”
Snyder, Daly and Bruns have recently proposed that caffeine affect behavior by countering the activity in the
human brain of a naturally occurring chemical called adenosine.
Adenosine normally depresses neuron firing
in many areas of the brain.
It apparently does this by inhibiting the release of neurotransmitters, chemicals
that carry nerve impulses from one neuron to the next.
Like many other agents that affect neuron firing,
adenosine must first bind to specific receptors on neuronal membranes.
There are at least two classes of
these receptors, which have been designated A1 and A2.
Snyder et al propose that caffeine, which is
structurally similar to adenosine, is able to bind to both types of receptors, which prevents adenosine from
attaching there and allows the neurons to fire more readily than they otherwise would.
For many years, caffeine’s effects have been attribut
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