objectives: datura stramonium (ds) is a common weed along roadsides, in cornfields and pastures and in waste areas. it belongs to the family solanaceae and its toxic components are tropane belladonna alkaloids. it has been used voluntarily by teenagers for its hallucinogenic effect. the plant is named in iran as tatoore. symptoms and signs of acute d. stramonium poisoning usually are similar to...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, which is characterised by progressive deterioration of memory and higher cortical functions that ultimately result in total degradation of intellectual and mental activities. Modern strategies in the search of new therapeutic approaches are based on the morphological and biochemical characteristics of AD, and focused on following dir...

Previous investigations have established that electrical activity or chronic depolarization influences the development of neonatal rat sympathetic neurons in dissociated cell culture. Depolarization reduces their ability to respond to a cholinergic inducing factor produced by non-neuronal cells, allowing normal adrenergic differentiation to proceed (Walicke, P., R. Campenot, and P. Patterson (1...

Cholinergic agents elicit prominent smooth muscle contractions via stimulation of muscarinic receptors that comprise five distinct subtypes (M1-M5). Although such contractions are important for autonomic organs, the role of each subtype has not been characterized precisely because of the poor selectivity of the currently available muscarinic ligands. Here, we generated a mutant mouse line (M2-/...

The effects of injections of M- and N-cholinergic blocking agents into the antero-medial hypothalamus (HM) and the midbrain central gray (GC) on the aggressive behavior of cats, evoked by microinjections of carbachol into those areas, were investigated in chronic experiments. The influence of pharmacological suppression of the M-cholinergic system in HM on the carbachol-induced aggression respo...

TNF has a critical mediator role in inflammation and is an important therapeutic target. We recently discovered that TNF production is regulated by neural signals through the vagus nerve. Activation of this "cholinergic antiinflammatory pathway" inhibits the production of TNF and other cytokines and protects animals from the inflammatory damage caused by endotoxemia and severe sepsis. Here, we ...

The stimulation of cholinergic receptors in target cells during a critical developmental period provides signals that influence cell replication and differentiation. Accordingly, environmental agents that promote cholinergic activity evoke neurodevelopmental damage because of the inappropriate timing or intensity of stimulation. Nicotine evokes mitotic arrest in brain cells possessing high conc...

1. The whole-cell patch-clamp technique was used to study the membrane properties of identified cholinergic and noncholinergic laterodorsal tegmental neurons in slices of rat brain maintained in vitro. 2. On the basis of their expression of the transient outward potassium current IA and the transient inward calcium current IT, three classes of neurons were observed: type I neurons exhibited a l...

The overactive bladder (OAB) is a debilitating condition in which patients suffer from urinary urgency, frequency and nocturia with or without urge urinary incontinence. The mainstay of pharmacotherapy for OAB is muscarinic receptor antagonists, which have been shown to be effective treatments for the symptoms of OAB. The mechanism underlying the efficacy of antimuscarinic agents against the sy...