It is true that glycine is predominantly inhibitory in the spinal cord, whereas it has a mixed role in the brain, but the MCAT tends not to analyze at that depth. For testing purposes, for example, Kaplan just generalizes it to being an “inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system” with the UWorld textbooks saying the same thing. Not that it’s incorrect, but I think my instinct is that the additional precision of the additional detail doesn’t necessarily add value to the yield of the card given the constraints of the exam.
This is long, but bear with me. I was thinking about thinking, and I hope this might helpful.
One detail that I think would be helpful (and was very helpful for me when I started out) is the idea that the MCAT deck is a deck, but not a textbook.
For example, a textbook is a reference source. It has a ton of information, should arguably be exactingly precise, include all (or most) relevant details, and all the rest. But, it’s important to distinguish that a deck, while it should agree with the textbook, does not (and should not) necessarily contain the same level of detail or precision. That’s not to say it should be exceedingly vague, or incorrect. But it’s a recall resource, rather than a source-content resource.
That might seem confusing on its face but the reasoning behind it is that it’s not really feasible, or desirable, for the Anking MCAT deck to become an encapsulated textbook. It would be woefully labor-intensive to make, maintain, revise, all the rest and ultimately would not be as effective for recall and repetition (which are the ultimate aims). So part of the game in creating, or editing, cards is something along the lines of ‘true, true, but parsimonious.’
A good example of this is the distinction between ‘helpful details’ and ‘useful details.’ Helpful details are not always desirable. There can be dozens of helpful details, and folks may not always agree on what is helpful. Helpful details can also crowd a lot of important space with information that isn’t necessarily actionable. Rather than what information is helpful, it’s useful to think about what information has utility. It’s one thing to be correct, but is it useful? Is it necessary, or likely to be important to detail discrimination? Does this help me answer the question? That’s the target. Otherwise we get 1,000 ‘helpful’ details and ultimately you get a lot of bloat. The goal is something like the ‘minimum information’ principle to keep things from acquiring info creep over time (which is very easy to do, and very deleterious on longer timeframes).
An easy example is that something can be 100% true and not be testable or relevant on the MCAT. Lactate dehydrogenase, for example, is active both in the cytosol and in the nucleus. That is definitely not within the testable knowledge base of the MCAT, and would be counterproductive to include. Lactate dehydrogenase also has multiple isoforms. Again, 100% correct but not appropriate to the scope of the exam. These are just a couple of examples but hopefully they’re helpful in how to think about edits and additions.
The MCAT deck, at least insofar as intended by the Anking group, is as a resource in the sense that it’s a tool. A tool for recalling, and for practice in that. As contrasted by a resource as in a reference for source material. The difference can be subtle, but is ultimately critical.
This isn’t even particularly directed at you, necessarily. It’s also me talking to myself, and thinking about how best to communicate the needs of the deck and best-practices. But also I know there’s only a couple/few people who spend any appreciable time lingering about these suggested edit pages so maybe it’ll be useful for a couple of errant souls. 