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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, nAChRs, rat hippocampal CA1

College

Life Sciences

Department

Physiology and Developmental Biology

Abstract

Hippocampal interneurons are a particularly diverse population of cells. Classifying these interneurons has historically been difficult using traditional schemes such as anatomical morphology, action potential spiking pattern, and receptor pharmacology. More recently however, classification of interneurons by examining expression of neuropeptide Y, somatostatin, and calcium-binding proteins (Ca-BPs: parvalbumin, calbindin, and calretinin) has been promoted as an effective means for identifying subpopulations within the hippocampus. Categorization of the expression of neuropeptide Y, somatostatin, and Ca-BPs with the various types of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) could provide information valuable for characterizing how various interneuron subpopulations function to modulate the overall activity of the hippocampus. The studies presented here use single-cell quantitative real-time RT-PCR to characterize the mRNA expression of the a2, a3, a4, a5, a7, b2, b3 and b4 neuronal nAChR subunits together with the genes for neuropeptide Y, somatostatin, and the calcium-binding proteins parvalbumin, calbindin, and calretinin in hippocampal interneurons from the CA1 stratum radiatum and stratum oriens.

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