Nicotinic cholinergic receptors activation process

The widespread presence of nicotinic receptors in the central nervous system coupled with the relative rarity of a classical synaptic role means that it is still difficult to describe a clear physiological role for these receptors. This is particularly true for receptors in presynaptic locations, for which the level and temporal pattern of exposure to the neurotransmitter are unknown. Approaches that are casting light on this problem include mouse knockout models and transmitter depletion by blockers of vesicular transport processes such as vesamicol the combination of these techniques has recently shown that normal evoked dopamine release in striatal slices is strongly dependent on endogenous cholinergic mechanisms that involve the activation of j32-containing nicotinic receptors (240). 

The muscarinic cholinergic system has quite a different mode of operation in that the receptor is connected to the final action by a chain of events. Thus its response is slower than the nicotinic, where the receptor and ion channel are closely connected. Five distinct muscarinic receptors have been identified in mammals, based on anatomical location, genetic analysis, function, and amino acid sequence. All of them have seven transmembrane domains [166, 167, 168, 169]. The N- terminal domain outside the cell binds acetylcholine or other ligands at a site that includes an aspartate residue, while the C-terminal domain inside the cell is coupled to a so-called G-protein , which is initially bound to guanosine diphosphate (GDP), but exchanges it for guanosine triphosphate (GTP) when activated by its transmitter. The activated G-protein then activates phospholipase C, which hydrolyzes phosphoinositides to release 1,4,5-inositol triphosphate [170]. The final action depends on which type of cell is involved so that in some types ion channels are opened just as with the nicotinic receptor, but in other cases other processes are affected, for example the release of dopamine [171]. Since there are these differences... 

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