This parody of Wu-Tang Clan's "Gravel Pit" was made for Human Biology 4A's unit on Neuroscience. The unit is taught by Russ Fernald (who is featured on his bicycle). Lyrics are below, followed by the cast. Video edited by Jake Wachtel.
SARAH TONIN (Chorus): Check out the synaptic cleft.
where, thanks to vesicular trafficking,
a neuronal signal can be transmitted
from electrical to chemical and back again.
METHYL MAN: Ha! Enter into the land if the nerve, where firing of wiring will occur.
Follow me. Neurons gotta be... ready to fire at any opportunity.
Dendritic input make it hot. Sum it up in the axon hillock.
The potential will rise to a constant size. The shape of action potentials ain’t no surprise.
Let's snap back to the focus of the rap: A tiny little space a.k.a. synapse.
Voltage sweeps to the end like a broom, Calcium rushes in - Vesicles go BOOM.
Exocytosis – so exciting. ACh (Acetylcholine) binds, light it up like lightning.
Synapse fanatics gather round, questions about this story?
DOPE A. MEAN: “Do the transmitters always excite?"
METHYL MAN: Nah they can be inhibitory.
Depending on, What they do to ions. If K+ rushes out, positive charge gone.
DOPE A. MEAN: “Only one synapse? What if there’s more?"
METHYL MAN: The hillock will sum it up, like I said before.
The synapse is the location for neuron-to-neuron communication.
Remember what Russ Fernald Said... “The mind arises from the brain!”
SARAH TONIN (Chorus):
Check out the synaptic cleft.
where, thanks to vesicular trafficking,
a neuronal signal can be transmitted
from electrical to chemical and back again.
GIFT OF GABA:
S to the ynapse, is where things act, like caplets of chemicals that make you relax,
Or collapse. The synaptic cleft has receptors that bind to the synthetic
ligands given by clinics that mimic your chemical conditions.
That’s a small problem for medicine. 100 trillion synapses – drugs screaming “let-us-in”.
If a disease is only in one part of the brain, wella pills not a sniper it’s a hand grenade.
It’ll act wherever there reside defect. Plus everywhere else. call ‘em side effects.
Don’t wanna sound like a cynic. We’ve all got a protein they call nicotinic.
It’s a receptor can’t tell the diff between ACh and nicotine - get a grip.
But nicotine leads to too much binding, So ACh receptors - get to hiding.
The neuromuscular junctions, they can’t quite function
because your receptors went out to lunch and….
now dopamine is on for reward prediction.
But it’s downregulated – and you’re getting addicted.
Fixin’ to kick the habit? With busted synapses? How tragic.
DERRICK: Synaptic receptors getting abducted?
A healthy synapse ain’t nothin’ to muck with.
I hope this rap has been instructive.
Cuz a healthy synapse ain’t nothin’ to muck with.
SARAH TONIN:
You don't have to leave the brain
to see just what creates your mind.
Cajal, give me some more neurons to study
Those dendrites sure are fine.
Checkinephrine (a.k.a. Elliot Liu): 19-year-old chess master, Stanford freshman, and member of the organization Wu-Chess (which seeks explore the intersection between hip-hop and chess, while teaching life skills to children). This scene was included in order to show love and support to Wu-Tang, who wrote the beat for the original song.
CAST:
Gift of GABA - Tom McFadden (Human Biology '08)
Methyl Man - Nick Streets (Mechanical Engineering '09)
Dope A. Mean - Derrick Davis (Public Policy '10)
Sarah Tonin - Amanda Ramero ('10), voice by Becca Richardson ('11)
Bobby Voltage - Julio Delgado ('11)
Nitrous Pop'n'loxide - Matt Gebre ('12)
Checkinephrine - Elliot Liu ('12)
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