Excessive inflammation and tumor-necrosis factor (TNF) synthesis causes morbidity and mortality in diverse human diseases including endotoxaemia, sepisis, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel diseases. Highly conserved, endogenous mechanisms normally regulate the magnitude of innate responses and prevent excessive inflammation. The release of system, through the vagus nerve, can inhibit ...

AIMS Concurrent use of ethanol and nicotine (tobacco) is often seen in human beings. In previous animal experiments, we have demonstrated that nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, especially alpha-conotoxin MII and mecamylamine sensitive receptors located in the ventral tegmental area may be involved in the stimulatory, dopamine enhancing, and rewarding effects of ethanol in rodents. Ethanol may ...

Antibodies in the sera of patients with myasthenia gravis are believed to play an important role in the pathogenesis of the disorder. They have recently been shown to accelerate the degradation of acetylcholine receptors in cultured mammalian skeletal muscle and at intact neuromuscular junctions. To elucidate the mechanism of the antibody-accelerated degradation process, we have prepared cultur...

The receptor-rich postsynaptic membrane of the elasmobranch electric organ was fixed by quick-freezing and then viewed by freeze-fracture, deep-etching, and rotary-replication . Traditional freeze-fracture revealed a distinct, geometrical pattern of shallow 8.5-nm bumps on the E fracture-face, similar to the lattice which has been seen before in chemically fixed material, but seen less clearly ...

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors are prototypical ligand gated ion channels typically found in muscular and neuronal tissues. Functional nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, however, have also recently been identified on other cell types, including stem cells. Activation of these receptors by the binding of agonists like choline, acetylcholine, or nicotine has been implicated in many cellular ch...

In cultures of Xenopus myotomal muscle cells and spinal cord (SC) some of the nerve-muscle contacts exhibit a high density of acetylcholine receptors (AChRs [Anderson et al ., 1977, /. Physiol. (Loud.) . 268:731-756, 757-773]) and synaptic ultrastructure (Weldon and Cohen, 1979, /. Neurocytol . 8:239-259) . We have examined whether similarly specialized contacts are established when the muscle ...

UNLABELLED There are acetylcholine receptors throughout the central nervous system, and they may mediate some forms and aspects of convulsive activity. Most high-affinity binding sites on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors for nicotine, cytisine, and epibatidine in the brain contain the beta2 subunit of the receptor. Transitional inhaled compounds (compounds less potent than predicted from their...

The basolateral amygdala (BLA) can influence distinct learning and memory formation. Hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP), the most prominent cellular model of memory formation, can be modulated by stimulation of the BLA in its induction and early maintenance. However, it is not known how the late maintenance of LTP beyond its initial phases might be affected. Behavioral stimuli have been s...

Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disease of the postsynaptic membrane, especially acetylcholine receptors in neuromuscular link skeletal muscle. Patients with myasthenia have a high number globally. The occurs due to disorder that impairs impulse connection between chemicals traveling from nerve endings and receptors. Clinical symptoms include weakness eye muscles (ptosis diplopia), difficult...