Effects of Alpha 1- and Alpha 2-Adrenoreceptor Stimulation on Galanin mRNA Expression in Primary Cultured Superior Cervical Ganglion Neurons

an inhibitory modulator of cholinergic and noradrenergic neurotransmission (Miller et al., 1999; Van Hoomissen et al., 2004; Landry et al., 2005; Hobson et al., 2006). Gal is co-localized with norepinephrine (NE) in several regions of the brain, such as locus coeruleus, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, amygdala, cortex and hippocampus (Hokfelt et al., 1998; Kozicz, 2001; Xu et al., 2001; Holmes et al., 2002; Barrera et al., 2006; Ogren et al., 2006; Simpson et al., 2006). Gal hyperpolarizes noradrenergic locus coeruleus neurons at high concentrations (10–6-10–7 mol/L) and enhances NE-induced hyperpolarization at low concentrations (10–9 mol/L) (Hokfelt et al., 1998). It has been shown that Gal expression was regulated by NE in the magnocellular neurons of supraoptic nucleus in an ex vivo acute model of rat hypothalamic slices (Melnikova et al., 2006) and in cultured dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons Original Article Biomol Ther 19(3), 315-319(2011)