Diseases associated with expression nAChRs

Abstract The existence of neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChRs) expression in the brain was discovered 30 years ago. Although the relevance of neuronal nAChRs at the time of their discovery was debated, it is now clear that nAChRs are expressed throughout the brain where they mainly serve a modulatory role. Neuronal nAChRs increasingly have become of interest due to the many observations that various nAChR subtypes exhibit abnormal expression or function in a wide assortment of neurological diseases. In this review, the putative role of nAChRs in brain disease is discussed in several broad categories (1) diseases associated with a loss of nAChRs, (2) diseases associated with innate differences in the expression of nAChRs, (3) diseases associated with genetic variability in genes that code for nAChR subunit proteins, and (4) diseases in which nAChRs are implicated based on the observation that nicotine has a therapeutic effect. 

Diseases Associated with Innate Differences in the Expression of nAChRs. 763... 

Although there obviously is individual variability in the expression of brain nAChRs in the population, altered expression of some nAChRs relative to healthy controls is associated with several neuropsychiatric disorders. The best-studied example of low nAChR expression in brain and disease is schizophrenia. A second example discussed is autism. 

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