In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, cholinergic motor neurons stimulate muscle contraction as well as activate GABAergic motor neurons that inhibit contraction of the contralateral muscles. Here, we describe the composition of an ionotropic acetylcholine receptor that is required to maintain excitation of the cholinergic motor neurons. We identified a gain-of-function mutation that leads to...

Cholinergic innervation of the hippocampus is known to be correlated with learning and memory. The cholinergic agonist carbachol (CCh) modulate synaptic plasticity and produced long-term synaptic depression (LTD) in the hippocampus. However, the exact mechanisms by which the cholinergic system modifies synaptic functions in the hippocampus have yet to be determined. This study introduces an ace...

In the cholinergic basal forebrain, we found previously that the extracellular adenosine concentration increase that accompanies sleep deprivation, acting via the A1 receptor, led to activation of the transcription factor nuclear factor-kappaB and to the upregulation of A1 adenosine receptor mRNA. We thus began to examine intracellular signaling mechanisms. We report here that adenosine, acting...

Motilin receptors (provisional nomenclature) are activated by motilin, a 22 amino-acid peptide derived from precursor (MLN, P12872), which may also generate motilin-associated peptide. There significant species differences in the structure of motilin and its receptor, functions motilin. In humans large mammals such as dog, activation these released endocrine cells duodenal mucosa during fasting...

Mucosal damage is a key feature of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and healing the mucosa an endpoint IBD treatment that often difficult to achieve. Autonomic neurons parasympathetic sympathetic nervous system may influence intestinal epithelial cell growth modulating innervation could for reason serve as interesting therapeutic option improve mucosal healing. Understanding biological process...

The habenulo-interpeduncular pathway, a highly conserved cholinergic system, has emerged as a valuable model to study left-right asymmetry in the brain. In larval zebrafish, the bilaterally paired dorsal habenular nuclei (dHb) exhibit prominent left-right differences in their organization, gene expression, and connectivity, but their cholinergic nature was unclear. Through the discovery of a du...

Cholinergic neurotransmission is essential for many important functions in the brain, including cognitive mechanisms. Here we demonstrate that human embryonic stem (hES) cells differentiate into a population of neuronal cells that express the cholinergic enzyme choline acetyltransferase and homeobox proteins specifying neuronal progenitors of ventral telencephalic lineage. These differentiated ...

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle reflex is a sensorimotor gating process known to be deficient in a number of neurologic and psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia. Multiple lines of evidence have indicated that the dopaminergic and muscarinic cholinergic systems play an important role in modulating PPI. Moreover, interactions between the dopaminergic and muscarinic ch...

The nicotinic cholinergic system exerts potent modulatory effects on glutamatergic neurotransmission, an effect mediated in part by increased glutamate release following activation of presynaptic nicotinic cholinergic receptors. Ionotropic glutamate receptor agonists also stimulate release of acetylcholine, suggesting that these neurotransmitter systems reciprocally regulate one another. We inv...

Cholinergic modulation of hippocampal synaptic plasticity has been studied extensively by applying receptor agonists or blockers; however, the effect of rapid physiological cholinergic stimuli on plasticity is largely unknown. Here, we report that septal cholinergic input, activated either by electrical stimulation or via an optogenetic approach, induced different types of hippocampal Schaffer ...