How the brain works

Neurotransmitters 6

Step 5
The transmitters then unbind from the receptors and re-enter the synaptic cleft. They are either broken down by the body or reabsorbed by the original axon. The breakdown of transmitters is performed chiefly by MAOs (monoamine oxidases), proteins that ‘eat up’ the transmitters, as it were.

The reabsorption, or ‘reuptake’, is meslideted by substances known as reuptake proteins. The process can now begin anew at step 1.