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greenappletree t1_j9x5fc7 wrote

it causes sleep because when adenosine binds to specific receptors in the brain, it slows down the activity of neurons, reducing arousal and promoting sleepiness. adenosine can also increase the release of sleep-promoting neurotransmitters, such as GABA, which further enhance the feeling of drowsines

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AdEnvironmental8339 t1_j9xuy6h wrote

How does the adenosine slow down the neurons activities ?

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greenappletree t1_j9z23l9 wrote

so in the brain we have two main type of neurons ( excitatory and inhibitory ) or glumate vs gaba. When glumate is release it causes a neuron to fire and thus exitatory. Adenosine is release when neurons fire sometimes (what we call presynaptic) and feed back onto itself, when it binds to the receptor it inhibit glutamate release and thus decreases activity. There are other mechnism, like I mentioned above such as increasing release of gaba, but I think this is the main one.

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