The brain is forever chattering to itself, via electrical impulses sent along its hard-wired neuronal "Ethernet." These e-messages are translated into chemical transmissions, allowing communication across the narrow cleft ...
Biochemistry
Nov 23, 2010
0
0
Cocaine, opioids, and other drugs of abuse disrupt the brain's reward system, often shifting users' priorities to obtaining more drug above all else. For people battling addiction, this persistent craving is notoriously difficult ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Feb 16, 2022
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723
UT Southwestern researchers have identified the structure of a key member of a family of proteins called nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in three different shapes. The work, published online today in Cell, could eventually ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Mar 17, 2021
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61
A newly developed video technique has allowed scientists at Goethe University Frankfurt at the Bee Research Institute of the Polytechnical Society to record the complete development of a honeybee in its hive for the first ...
Plants & Animals
May 26, 2020
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955
UT Southwestern researchers today published in Nature atomic-scale blueprints of the most abundant class of brain nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. A structural understanding of the protein, found in neurons, could lead ...
Biochemistry
May 2, 2018
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24
A tiny snail may offer an alternative to opioids for pain relief. Scientists at the University of Utah have found a compound that blocks pain by targeting a pathway not associated with opioids. Research in rodents indicates ...
Biochemistry
Feb 20, 2017
12
2827
Scientists from the RIKEN Quantitative Biology Center in Japan removed the electric organ from a torpedo and chemically stimulated the organ by injecting a solution of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine though a syringe. ...
Energy & Green Tech
May 31, 2016
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37
For more than a decade, a vial of rare snake venom refused to give up its secret formula for lethality; its toxins had no effect on the proteins that most venoms target. Finally, an international team of researchers figured ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 9, 2015
2
123
Cone snail venom has given University of Queensland researchers a lead on the possible detection and treatment of some cancers and addictions.
Biochemistry
Jan 8, 2015
0
46
The female common market squid –– AKA Doryteuthis opalescens –– may not be so common after all. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have discovered that this glamorous cephalopod possesses a pair of stripes that can sparkle ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 18, 2013
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0
The chemical compound acetylcholine (often abbreviated ACh) is a neurotransmitter in both the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and central nervous system (CNS) in many organisms including humans. Acetylcholine is one of many neurotransmitters in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the only neurotransmitter used in the motor division of the somatic nervous system (sensory neurons use glutamate and various peptides at their synapses). Acetylcholine is also the principal neurotransmitter in all autonomic ganglia.
Acetylcholine slows the heart rate when functioning as an inhibitory neurotransmitter. However, acetylcholine also behaves as an excitatory neurotransmitter at neuromuscular junctions.
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