3 ms·

If they had high levels of baseline vasopressin, shouldn't this make it easier to stay hydrated because it increase the amount of fluid reabsorbed by the kidney

• whatshisface 5y ago
  Not if the high levels were an incomplete response to very low receptor performance. Biochemical signaling pathways are a mixture of negative-feedback systems that do not assume anything about the sensitivities of each receptor (because in a pure feedback system the signal would be amplified until it activated the receptor sufficiently) and "level-interpreting" (I don't know the actual term) systems where each concentration communicates a specific semaphore-like claim and if the downstream receptor does not match the sender, it will get the message wrong. One simple case where the second phenomenon arises is when the production of the signalling compound is prevented, by the finite ability of the cell to make it, from rising to the levels that would agonize the downstream receptor enough to achieve whatever the cell was going for.
  • JamesBarney 5y ago
    That makes sense.