Development of Selective Connectivity in a Simple Nervous System

简单神经系统选择性连接的发展

• 批准号: 9514701
• 负责人: Rodney Murphey
• 金额: $ 27.2万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Amherst
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1996
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1996-03-01 至 2000-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9514701&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Development; Selective; Connectivity; Simple; Nervous

Murphey 9514701 Nerve cells, or neurons, communicate with each other at specialized junctions called synapses. At chemical synapses, an active neuron releases a particular chemical neurotransmitter compound from the presynaptic side of the terminal to cross the tiny synaptic gap and bind to receptor molecules on the postsynaptic cell. Binding of the neurotransmitter leads to an electrophysiological change called the postsynaptic potential. Two sensitive indicators of transmitter release that can be measured by electrophysiological recordings are facilitation, which is an increased postsynaptic response, and depression, which is a decreased postsynaptic response. Some identified single cells in insects can make two different kinds of synapse on postsynaptic cells, facilitating at one cell and depressing at the other. The emergence of facilitation at a synapse has been found to be regulated by the postsynaptic cell, so the target cell has an effect on the input it receives. This work will use electrophysiology and pharmacology to examine this retrograde regulation of transmitter release, using the advantages of invertebrate nervous systems in having particular identifiable synapses. It may be that a continuous release of a co-transmitter differentially adjusts the properties of the presynaptic terminal, or instead that the postsynaptic neurons release a substance that regulates the function of the presynaptic terminal. Results from this work will be important to understanding the important issue of how synaptic activity is regulated, and these results are likely to have a broad impact in both neurophysiology and developmental neuroscience.

默菲9514701神经细胞，或称神经元，在称为突触的特殊连接处相互通信。在化学突触，活跃的神经元从终末的突触前一侧释放一种特定的化学神经递质化合物，穿过微小的突触间隙，与突触后细胞上的受体分子结合。神经递质的结合会导致一种称为突触后电位的电生理变化。可以通过电生理记录测量的递质释放的两个敏感指标是促进和抑制，前者是突触后反应的增加，后者是突触后反应的降低。一些在昆虫中发现的单个细胞可以在突触后细胞上产生两种不同类型的突触，在一个细胞上促进，在另一个细胞上抑制。突触易化的出现已被发现受到突触后细胞的调控，因此目标细胞对其接收的输入有影响。这项工作将使用电生理学和药理学来研究这种递质释放的逆行调节，利用无脊椎动物神经系统具有特定可识别突触的优势。可能是共递质的持续释放不同地调节了突触前终末的特性，或者是突触后神经元释放了一种调节突触前终末功能的物质。这项工作的结果将对理解突触活动如何调节这一重要问题非常重要，这些结果可能会对神经生理学和发育神经科学产生广泛影响。