Talk:Monoamine transporter

Peer review

I thought this article was really great. As far as I could tell you seemed to have covered your topics very thoroughly. I particularly liked that you explained the specific role of monoamine transporters in some common diseases. I have a few suggestions for improvement. The major difficulty that I had with the article was understanding the Intro. I think making that first paragraph more general would make some of the basic facts easier to understand and give a better starting point for the rest of the article. For example, sentences such as the first two sentences in the Structure and mechanism section would provide slightly less detail while still being informative. One other thing I would suggest would be to think about making subheadings within your existing section for the text that you have bolded--basically just reformatting so that specific subsection could be accessed from the top menu. Lastly I'd just suggest correcting the headings with multiple words to the Wikipedia format of only capitalizing the first. Great work!MKMurphy (talk) 03:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I thought the article was very well done and thoroughly researched. I was especially interested in the associated disorders and treatments section and liked that you related the function of Monoamine transporter to so many prevalent conditions. It may be beneficial to simplify some or you language to make it less technical and easier to understand. You may want to simply the mechanism and move it closer to the introduction to give the reader a general overview as to what it does. Also, you may want to split up the Research History section into History for the older stuff and Research directions for the current advancements in the field.Pklauck1 (talk) 20:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Interesting and, more importantly, understandable article! You’ve got some great information and I like how the introduction of your article summarizes all of the components you go on to discuss. I agree with MKMurphy, though; the language could be simplified. Consider this sentence under “Types”: “There are several different monoamine transporters each belonging to the family of Na +/Cl - -dependent substrate-specific neuronal membrane transporters.” The end of this sentence is a bit overwhelming and took a couple of read-throughs for me to comprehend fully. I've mentioned this to other groups (and need to do it for my own article soon), but sometimes reading the article out loud can help eliminate wordiness or awkwardness. Other minor edits: I found a small typo in the last sentence of the second paragraph under “Structure and Mechanism” – it should be “ions *out* of a neuron”, not “our of a neuron”. Moreover, in that section you write that, “To return to an outwardly facing conformation SERT requires the transport of intracellular K+. There is no evidence that the other transporters have such a requirement.” Then, after the table, it says, “Phosphorylation plays a key role in MAT function. When SERT is phosphorylated by the PKC-dependent pathway SERT internalization occurs.” I thought the ordering of these points was a bit backwards. Perhaps you could mention the internalization of SERT (with respect to phosphorylation) and then the return to the outward-facing conformation? In terms of the table, you may want to describe it in words, and even expand the heading to “Structure, mechanism and location”. I hope you’ve found these suggestions to be helpful – just some food for thought! Great job again and good luck! KelleyAmbrose (talk) 22:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Great article guys, I like the use of tables and other organizational features you included. I would maybe suggest combining the types and function section so you don't have an isolated list, but that's just my opinion and there's really nothing wrong with it as it stands. Also, you could divide up some of the sections so it flows more easily as well as provides another link in the table of contents. Other than that, maybe just reword the intro slightly to make it a little more of an overview. Overall, very well done. Geerr23 (talk) 20:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The article looks really good. I would recommend going through and linking to more pages such as pancreas, norepinephrine, etc. Having those links will help people who don't have a strong science background to understand your article better. Also, in the Parkinson's Disease section you refer to the basal ganglia and I think it would be helpful to explain its function as it plays a role in motor control and would therefore provide a clear and direct connection to the symptoms of Parkinson's. Finally, I recommend proofreading this again as there are a few grammatical errors ("on going" in the research history section should be one word, ongoing). The overall content and organization is very good and with some minor editing you should be all set. Weitzm (talk) 02:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

This article is detailed, yet concise and easy to understand. Here are a few minor suggestions that may improve the flow of your article. First, after reading some other Wikipedia articles, I found that the use of images can greatly enhance the comprehensibility of an article. So, I think that a general diagram or image of MATs and their roles in synapses can serve as a good supplement to your article. Second, there is a small typo in the last sentence of the Research History section where "on going" should be "ongoing." In that same section, I was also a bit confused about the presence of the "Triple MAT agents (aka SNDRI's oder TRI)" subsection; it would be helpful to the reader if this section is expanded to include general definitions of triple MAT agents, as well as a brief description of the functions of the chemicals listed. C.chi.han (talk) 02:36, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, great article, very well researched, especially because it seems to be a very complicated subject with lots of minor details. Simply a few minor suggestions. I suppose the largest of the suggestions would be with the Triple MAT Agents near the very end of the article, under the History section. This part was a bit confusing the first time I read this section. Maybe you should regroup the last part of your history section and create a new "Current Research" section. Also in there, I did not understand what "SNDRI's oder TRI" meant. Looking at the Parkinson's Disease section, it seemed somewhat short. Not that this is bad (as there may not be a lot of info out there), but if you could say why the DAT is lower in a Parkinson's patient brain, that could add some substance. Overall, though, nice job. Again, these are just minor changes, and on the whole there was lots of substance. BrianJLike (talk) 02:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Without sounding too redundant, I agree with the previous comments- this is a very well-organized and clearly written article. I think the article follows a logical progression of topics. The first paragraph providing a definition of MATs was very clear. Maybe have an internal link to covalent modification or phosphorylation, as you mention this in the opening paragraph. I though it was good that you broke down the types of monoamine transporters into separate sections to provide characteristics for each. I did find this section the most dense; you may consider changing some of the more scientific language to language more for a general audience. I also did not understand the Triple MAT agents section; you would want to elaborate on this. Once again this was very well done! --Smguro (talk) 03:41, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Peer review 2

Overall the article is well written and provides a comprehensive description of monoamine transporters. The article is well formatted and consistently maintains a neutral tone. However, there are a few minor changes that you might want to consider making. Under the Structure and Mechanism section there is a reference to the SLC6 gene family. I feel as though you might want to quickly describe the family’s general neuronal functions. Another thing that caught my eye was located under the “Associated disorders and treatments”. You mention that there is an increase in extracellular monoamines when the transporters are blocked. You might want discuss what happens within the neuron when this rise in extracellular concentration occurs. You may want to consider elaborating on a few things in the “Associated disorders and treatments”. The article should expand on how exactly drugs involved in treating mood disorders functionally affect the transporters. Furthermore, the link between Parkinson’s disease and monoamine transporters could use a little more elaboration as well. Is a low density of DATs universal to all cases of Parkinson’s disease or just one case? Other than these minor suggestions, I thought the article was well rounded and informative.--Patrickmcgillen (talk) 01:46, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Response to Reviews

Thank you all for your suggestions regarding this article. After thoroughly reading each review we have made the appropriate changes to this article. We attempted to fix all grammatical and formatting errors including subheadings, paragraph breaks, spelling errors, and sequencing issues. We included an image that we believe is incredibly helpful in explaining both general characteristics of MATs as well as the effects of psychostimulants on MAT function. Also, we added links in areas where further knowledge may be helpful in understanding the material. Although many articles mention a connection between Parkinson's disease and MAT function, there is a general lack of detail regarding the specific connection. For this reason we chose to remove the section regarding Parkinson's disease from the article. Regarding the structure and mechanism section of the article, we feel further simplification of the language would compromise the article's integrity. Attempts to find a clarifying image failed as most of the images we came across still maintained copyrights. The double and triple MAT agent section (an original piece of the stub article) was improved in terms of its explanation and wording. PMAT was moved to the "see also" section, as the inclusion of this specific transporter did not follow the same format as major MATs (DAT, SERT, NET). Also, inclusion of PMAT would then open the article for the inclusion of other transporters such as VMAT1, VMAT2, etc. Regarding the intro, we did make a few changes (word choice, links, explanations) in order to simplify this paragraph. As it stands we feel that our changes make this paragraph easier to understand. Once again thank you for your suggestions. Please notify us if further changes may be necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Migliozzi88 (talk • contribs) 00:42, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Amphetamine Family & Ritalin

This page has developed nicely over the past year or so. I am concerned about saying "the family of amphetamines includes ... methylphenidate" followed immediately by a description of the mechanism of being transported/acting inside the neuron which may lead one to think that is true for methylphenidate. In this regard methylphenidate should be removed from the family (sentence) and would be better grouped in the preceding subsection with cocaine.Box73 (talk) 07:05, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

This article was developed as a class project and is very unlikely to be maintained by the people who developed it, so if you see any problem, I hope you will feel free to boldly fix it. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 19:53, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Read your suggestion and have made a couple of changes after re-reading the original article. I believe the changes will make the methylphenidate description more accurate now that it has been relocated to the Cocaine subsection and removed from the "amphetamine family" sentence. Cheers. Migliozzi88 (talk) 15:07, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Opening paragraph revision

I don't edit Wikipedia very often. I saw cocaine referred to as a synthetic compound which it most definitely is not and I wanted to correct that. I ended up accidentally putting some good effort to making a more captivating and interesting and relevant introduction. I wasn't sure exactly how hard to push the recreational v. medicinal angle, how many classes of what to use as examples, but I think I reached a good balance. Monoamine transporters are a very, very, very important subject, and few other subjects on the same level could rival the relevance to the layman as the MATs. Those Zoloft commercials, meth labs blowing up, college students gobbling Adderall on exam week, etc. etc. I feel like it serves as a good introduction to the reader stumbling upon this article as to their significance.

I eagerly welcome any feedback, suggestions, corrections and improvements. dlainhart (talk) 22:28, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, clearly your edits are an improvement. The most important issue here is that if we think of the target audience for this article as, say, an undergraduate neuroscience student, there is little chance that such a reader will get far enough into the intro to see your changes -- the first couple of sentences are just too intimidating. I have a Ph.D. in neuroscience and I can barely understand them myself. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 18:00, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank-you dlainhart for your contribution to this page. It's great to see there is traffic crossing this page and how nicely the text has evolved over the last couple of years. However, I would have to disagree with Looie496 on the complexity of the page. The majority of revisions and writing of this page were conducted by students at the undergraduate level. Furthermore, several reviews of the page were made by peers ranging from various levels of undergraduates backgrounds. Most students with an introductory level of biology under their belts should be able to read through the majority of this article without much difficulty. If you have any suggestions on how to improve the page either through revisions of syntax, style, grammar, or terminology they are certainly welcomed and encouraged. migliozzi88 (talk) 12:32, 27 November 2012 (UTC)