Blood glucose levels are kept fairly steady in healthy people through the action of the hormones insulin and glucagon. Insulin decreases blood glucose by promoting glucose uptake by cells, whereas glucagon increases blood glucose by promoting release of glucose from cells. Describe these hormone actions as simple reflex pathways, identifying the stimulus, integrating center, efferent pathway, and response.
What will be an ideal response?
Brain cells lack the insulin receptors that stimulate glucose uptake, because an insulin-independent mechanism for glucose uptake is present. Brain cells will down-regulate their glucose transporters during periods of hyperglycemia. When insulin levels increase during treatment of type I diabetes, promoting lower concentrations of glucose in the blood, this can trigger diabetic coma because the brain cells have too few glucose transporters for the new, lower levels of blood glucose.
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