Neurology 101: How Your Dopaminergic Neurons "Cock And Load" With Nicotine And Acetylcholine

So your brain is designed to "cock and load" the dopaminergic neurons using nicotine (exogenously) and acetylcholine (both exogenously and endogenously). 

Think of it like a dispenser gun.  When these chemicals hit receptor sites on these neurons, they "cock open" the ion channel, allowing sodium and calcium to enter and potassium to leave - "loading" the gun.  Then when you get an impulse to move, be still, or think, the gun fires dispensing dopamine and transmitting the signal down the chain.

There are thousands of these receptors on every neuron.  The higher the concentration of these chemicals near the neurons, the more receptors are hit, cocked, and loaded. Diversity and plurality of these chemicals hitting on individual receptors opens the channels wider, "loading" bigger doses.  Over time, through "long term potentiation" you build more receptors if you keep hitting them well below toxic levels.  Then the signal gets stronger and stronger.

So even IF you MAY have dead neurons, you CAN improve over time by regularly exercising the surviving neurons in this way.  More receptors, more neuro-transmitters, more hits. Half as many twice as good is just the same as you were.

See a scientific diagram I made below, and another one even a chimpanzee can understand. 

(I especially loved the picture, borrrowed from the Jane Goodall website of the chimpanzees eating large, raw eggplant :-)

God Bless,

Glen Pettibone