Care to explain syntaxmachine...I love learning new things. I'm a little slow so maybe you can post some real life examples...studies would help.
Thanks.
I take the word "serotonergic" (which I misspelled previously) to mean 'pertaining to brain mechanisms which utilize serotonin,' mechanisms variously referred to as the 'serotonergic system' or 'serotonin system.' This means that the term the word is affixed to is activated by serotinin, utilizes serotonin to transmit impulses, or whatever.
These mechanisms in turn undergird specific cognitive functions such as memory. Nobody knows exactly how to relate the neuroscientific data to the cognitive psychological data besides to correlate them (e.g., lower serotonin nerve cell count is correlated with lower memory capacity).
I never said I was an expert; I simply related the basic facts as determined by actual experts. In the portion where you quoted me I said 'serotonergic
receptor,' but in reality I was using the term as a synonym for 'serotonergic
nerve cell,' which I'm sure an expert would tell me is not precisely the same thing. Luckily, the facts are understandable regardless of whether we use every technical term with precision: specific sorts of drug use lowers the amount of functional components (cells, receptors, uptake sites, blah blah blah) of the serotonin system, thus decreasing the ability of that system to implement the cognitive functions associated with it. Here are a few pertinent studies (in this case, regarding MDMA use):
http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/gamma2000.pdf(regarding animal study implications for humans) "....There is strong evidence that these changes include damage to serotonergic nerve cells. And so far, we have no reason to believe that human MDMA users should be spared from similar neurotoxic effects...."
(discussing the explanations for the findings of the study, which were that memory performance and MDMA use were negatively correlated) "Ecstasy/MDMA certainly is a very plausible cause: We have a neurobiological rationale that provides the necessary connection between MDMA, serotonergic neurotoxicity and memory impairments. Further, the present studies, apart from showing worse memory in Ecstasy users, also demonstrate correlations between exposure to Ecstasy and memory performance."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071023/ (under "Human Studies")
http://www.academia.edu/306864/Ecstasy_MDMA_and_Memory_Function_a_Meta-Analytic_Update