Brief Presentation of the Story and Present Status of Studies of the Vertebrate Cholinergic System

Abstract

This year marks the seventieth anniversary of Otto Loewi's demonstration of chemical transmission generally and autonomic cholinergic transmission specifically and the fortieth anniversary of John Eccles's proof of the existence of central cholinergic transmission. Following these epochal findings, the subsequent studies of the cholinergic system led to discoveries of similarly important phenomena. This review concerns these phenomena, including chemical structure and molecular biology of cholinergic receptors; electrophysiologic and ionic aspects of pre-and postsynaptic cholinergic events; the quantal expression of cholinergic postsynaptic events and activities of their subunits, the elementary events; and teratology; trophic phenomena; and the clinical aspects of the cholinergic system. This review refers to the history as well as the present status of each of these phenomena; furthermore, it describes briefly the nineteenth-century work with calabar bean, pilocarpine, muscarine, and nicotine, that is, the work performed before the promulgation of the cholinergic era.[ Neuropsychopharmacology 9:181-199, 1993J included the frrst descriptions of the trophic phenomena, the quantal nature of the biological events, the recep tors and their chemical structure, the role of a trans mittive system in arousal and memory, and so on. So, it is appropriate to sketch at this time the history and the present status of the vertebrate cholinergic studies.

Sedative and anxiolytic effects of the extracts of the leaves of <i>Stachytarpheta Cayennensis</i> in mice

“…The NIR-spontaneous locomotor behaviour phenomenon is regulated by multiple neurotransmitter systems (Karczmar, 1993). Such transmitters include acetylcholine (ACh), dopamine, serotonin (5-HT), gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA), opioid and noradrenaline (Garrett et al, 2003;Jordan, 1998;Karczmar 1993). This study was able to establish that the inhibitory activity of the extract and the butanol fractions of the plant on NIR and spontaneous locomotor activity (SLA) were mediated via the GABA and (to a lesser extent) opioid receptors.…”

Structural insights and functional implications of choline acetyltransferase

“…ACh was the first neurotransmitter to be reported (Loewi, 1921) and has since been shown to play a pivotal role in fundamental brain processes such as learning, memory, and sleep (Aigner and Mishkin, 1986;Bartus et al, 1982;Karczmar, 1993). ACh functions in the cholinergic neurons of the peripheral and central nervous systems.…”

Neural restrictive silencer factor and choline acetyltransferase expression in cerebral tissue of Alzheimer's Disease patients: a pilot study

“…Considering the presence of motor, memory and behavior control circuits in the frontal cortex (Karczmar, 1990, 1993; Pepeu, 1993), we speculate that these are acetylcholinergic circuits and need ChAT to recycle choline in order to maintain the chemical signal to the circuit.…”