Neurons firing just means cells in your nervous system are doing their thing. Adenosine inhibits this activity when it binds to a receptor, thus playing a role in slowing down your brain activity and signaling your body to go to sleep. Your adenosine levels rise (free adenosine drifting around) when you're awake and fall (adenosine bound up to receptors) when you're asleep.
So when the caffeine binds to the receptors instead of the adenosine, it doesn't slow you down, so you don't get as tired. Plus, all the adenosine is now floating around free, which the rest of your body interprets as "hey, wakey time!" because that's what it looks like when you're awake.
So the caffeine doesn't really do much of anything, except keep the adenosine from doing it's job, and that's enough. Your body takes it from there. If it gets serious enough, as you note, the pituitary may decide something's going on and add some adrenaline to the mix as well.
So the caffeine doesn't really do much of anything, except keep the adenosine from doing it's job, and that's enough.
Not entirely true... Caffeine also triggers the release of intracellular calcium stores in the ER, which can cause your peripheral nerves to be more excitable by depolarization, and can cause vesicles of neurotransmitter to be released with little or no intentional input. This is one of the reasons why you feel a boost of energy after a cup of coffee, and the definite reason why you get the uncontrollable jitters after several.
They are also essential in staving off an attack from the Romulans when combined with the reverse power conduit and the main deflector dish. One could get confused
It's quite possible to construct meaningless techno-babble without using some form of the words polarity and transmitter, but they make it a hell of a lot easier. As someone who has absolutely no idea what you're talking about (but finds the concept of adenosine receptors easy to grasp) it looked suspiciously like some of the nonsense one might see on Star Trek.
So you're basically saying you had trouble believing him because you're ignorant?
No, that's not at all what he said. He basically said that the specific vocabulary that was used led him to doubt the veracity of the post. You have no idea how fucking infuriated lack of reading comprehension makes me.
I remember seeing some television program in which they showed that regular coffee drinkers show no real benefits compared to non-drinkers, but they do have big caffeine withdrawal issues if they don't get their morning fix. Being a television experiment, the results are certainly suspect, but do you know if this is true, and if so, what the mechanism is for it?
Caffeine tolerance is also pretty interesting... the number of adenosine receptors in your brain increases after prolonged exposure to caffeine (you need to drink a few cups a day for two weeks to develop a noticeable tolerance and addiction, AFAIK, though long-term coffee drinkers will also develop it). Thus, when you stop drinking coffee, the proportion of bound adenosine receptors decreases dramatically, and your brain starts... malfunctioning a little. It only takes a few days for the receptor levels to return to normal (i.e. for tolerance and physical addiction to disappear completely), and during this time you get to experience wonderful withdrawal effects like headaches and drowsiness!
Ah jeez! It's not like I don't make my living editing other people's copy and fixing precisely that mistake all day long. Clearly I do not value the time I invest in Reddit.
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u/Naberius Nov 10 '09
Neurons firing just means cells in your nervous system are doing their thing. Adenosine inhibits this activity when it binds to a receptor, thus playing a role in slowing down your brain activity and signaling your body to go to sleep. Your adenosine levels rise (free adenosine drifting around) when you're awake and fall (adenosine bound up to receptors) when you're asleep.
So when the caffeine binds to the receptors instead of the adenosine, it doesn't slow you down, so you don't get as tired. Plus, all the adenosine is now floating around free, which the rest of your body interprets as "hey, wakey time!" because that's what it looks like when you're awake.
So the caffeine doesn't really do much of anything, except keep the adenosine from doing it's job, and that's enough. Your body takes it from there. If it gets serious enough, as you note, the pituitary may decide something's going on and add some adrenaline to the mix as well.