Welcome to MCAT Basics, your ultimate guide to the essential topics you need to master for the MCAT,

brought to you by the physicians at Med School Coach.

Every week, Sam Smith breaks down high-yield MCAT topics, ensuring you're primed for success on test day.

Join Sam as we explore the most crucial subjects outlined by the AAMC, pulled from official

practice materials and third-party resources. Get ready to elevate your MCAT game with topics

tailored to maximize your score potential. Today's guest host is Alex Starks. So today's episode,

we're going to be reviewing a really important topic, that being biosignaling.

So we'll be discussing biosignantly conceptually. Then we'll move on to the mechanisms that are important for the MCAT to know. And then we'll wrap up with a little quiz about what we talked about. We won't be talking about all of the different types of biosignals that exist because, one, science hasn't discovered them all. That's a good reason. and then two, most of this you'll learn, like the nitty-gritty-gritty that you'll learn in medical school.

If you're familiar with the AAMC content outline,

most of this information is covered under 3A,

which, quote,

focuses on the structure and functions of the nervous and endocrine systems

and the ways the systems work together to coordinate the responses of other body systems to both external and internal

stimuli."

So that's a lot.

Now something that's really important to know is that the MCAT really rewards students

that understand the idea of there's a stimulus, some internal processing has to occur,

and then there's some sort of response.

So this not only means things like the classic fight-or-flight example of you see a bear,

and then the sympathetic nervous response allows you to think quickly and run faster

after it reroutes the blood supply to your brain and your muscles.

So it's not just that.

...