Sympathomimetics: Direct agonists

Alpha agonists and beta agonists are two types of adrenergic medications that stimulate their respective receptors and mimic the effect of endogenous catecholamines, like norepinephrine and epinephrine.

The nervous system is divided into the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system.

The peripheral nervous system can be further divided into the somatic nervous system, which controls voluntary movement of our skeletal muscles; and the autonomic nervous system, which controls the involuntary movement of the smooth muscles and glands of our organs; this system is then further divided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

Now, the autonomic nervous system is made up of a relay that includes two neurons.

We’ll focus on just the sympathetic nervous system.

Signals for the autonomic nervous system start in the hypothalamus, at the base of the brain.

Hypothalamic neurons have really long axons that carry signals all the way down to the thoracic and lumbar spinal cord nuclei, where they synapse with preganglionic neuron cell bodies.

From there, the signal goes from the preganglionic neurons down its relatively short axon, exits the spinal cord, and reaches the nearby sympathetic ganglion, which is made up of lots of postganglionic neuron cell bodies.

The postganglionic neurons are also called adrenergic neurons, because they release the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which is also called noradrenalin; and to a much lesser degree, epinephrine also known as adrenaline.