Spencer OCAT 2

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Across
  1. 3. “Vase” opens wide: a widening tube that lowers resistance and helps blood flow. (11 letters)
  2. 4. A “psycho-kinetic” immune text: small proteins that coordinate who does what, when, and how hard. (8 letters)
  3. 6. “Chemistry makes taxis”: cells follow chemical gradients like they are chasing a smell trail. (10 letters)
  4. 9. Long-distance relationship signaling: made in one place, acts far away, carried by blood. (9 letters)
  5. 12. The gas pedal transmitter: excitatory fuel that also gets dumped downstream of TRPV activation. (9 letters)
  6. 15. A bouncer at the spinal cord door: sometimes touch fibers can reduce what pain gets through. (11 letters)
  7. 16. Feelings have receipts: pain is not just signal, it is also emotion, and this system signs the invoice. (12 letters)
  8. 18. When the membrane gets more negative, the cell gets less dramatic, and muscle tends to chill. (16 letters)
  9. 21. Sounds like “pro-stay-calm” for vessels: a prostaglandin that biases toward dilation through cAMP logic. (12 letters)
  10. 23. Where pain gets “edited” before it climbs higher; central sensitization can rewrite the script here. (10 letters)
  11. 24. A volume knob turned up: the same input starts to feel louder after inflammatory mediators meddle. (13 letters)
Down
  1. 1. The opposite of “go with the flow”: tightening radius to raise resistance and pressure. (16 letters)
  2. 2. “All-dose-to-stay” salty: the hormone that makes the body hang onto sodium and water downstream of RAAS. (11 letters)
  3. 5. When viruses interrupt your cells, these are the alarm broadcasts that prime antiviral gene programs. (11 letters)
  4. 6. Pull yourself together: actomyosin does exactly that when the right kinase wins the argument. (11 letters)
  5. 7. The letter “P” is for “pain propaganda”: released from nociceptors to spread the inflammatory message. (10 letters)
  6. 8. A calm “module” that only gets busy when calcium shows up, then helps turn contraction machinery on. (10 letters)
  7. 10. When voltage rises, calcium gates stop being shy, and contraction becomes more likely. (13 letters)
  8. 11. A neighborly note: the signal that talks next door, not across the body and not back to self. (9 letters)
  9. 13. A “throw-box” of vasoconstriction: a prostanoid that pushes platelets and vessels toward tightening. (10 letters)
  10. 14. A Ten, sin, and tension: this peptide shows up in the RAAS story when vessels need to clamp down. (11 letters)
  11. 17. The complaint department: first to report heat, acid, stretch, and chemicals before the brain writes the story. (10 letters)
  12. 19. A little “ananda” (bliss) that still plays two-faced roles depending on receptor context. (10 letters)
  13. 20. The quiet middle-person: when it is happy you get NO-based relaxation, when it is angry tone shifts. (11 letters)
  14. 22. Sometimes the best response is to *let go* — especially when smooth muscle drops tone and vessels widen. (10 letters)